Goodbye Winter!!

Winter is SO fun - in November and December... Starts to wear on me around mid-January.. In the Midwest, Old Man Winter hangs around really until the end of April. So while I'm ready to jump out of my skin at yet another rainy April day (thankfully it's getting a lot warmer though), I thought I'd go through the winter pics one more time.. Then I'll put them away until my bones warm up a bit.. These are from January, 2009- we were kind of excited for this big blizzard.. The snow that fell would have been perfect for skiing - not so much for snowman making. Ever the miracle seekers, our brains here at the Hamlet are now trained to seek creativity as a antidote for bummed-out-ness. (yes, it's a word). Sadly, creativity levels seem to drop substantially after Christmas. *sigh* We made a snow-dragon instead. Snow-dragons don't require sticky snow. Truth be told, in order to get to the snow-dragon, I first had to walk around the yard for 20 minutes trying to get a #$&!! snowball to stick so the snowman could be made. Then I had to have a temper fit because it kept crumbling after about 2 inches. THEN in my fury I started to try and mound the snow for the snow man's base, but of course I couldn't get any height... In my defeated surrender, I noticed that if you put a snowball on the mound of snow, it kind of looked like a dragon tail... And poof - a happy ending is born! I really am grateful that despite the fresh powder, Ryan's snow ball maker from Paul & Dorie worked great! It was a fun afternoon of snow ball fights, snow dragons and reenactments from one of our favorite Christmas movies. In January it seems kind of charming that the day is only about 3 1/2 hours long, and that you can see the moon at 4 pm, and the snow is everywhere...