Let It Snow!

When we woke up this morning, the ground was covered with a thin layer of powder, and big flakes were still falling steadily from the sky. It was so pretty! I expected to hear sleigh bells any minute! And, of course, I couldn't help myself. I bundled up and went out to take a few pictures. This was in the back yard:

And then I was admiring the snowflakes on the bumper of Gus' truck, so I ran in to grab my "poor man's" macro filters. I love snowflakes!!! This picture is spotty because of the metallic gray paint on the truck, but just look at how many little snowflakes there were. And they really are so unique! Awesome!!

A little while later, I decided I would go over to the post office to mail out our Christmas cards. But... my car wouldn't start. I took the truck instead, but when I got back, Gus and I talked about my car. It clearly needed a new battery, after failing to start twice in one week. We looked into it, and learned that AAA would come out to the house, test the battery (for free), and install a new one for a very reasonable price if it was necessary (as we knew it would be). So now my car has a new battery. Yay for not being stranded in the tundra!

After lunch, Gus needed to get a few things for his next business trip, so we took a family trip to the store. I got some more Christmas decorations-- hooray! One day, I will have enough to adequately decorate this beast of a house. We didn't have that many decorations to begin with, and our old house was a third of the size as this one. And the cold weather/snow really puts me in a festive mood. I needed more decorations!

On the way back, we stopped off at the Festival of Trees. This is quite an event in our town! I wish I had known about it last year! It began last night, with a bell-ringing concert at the church. I wanted to go, but was outvoted (sigh). And today, the library was opened up for the festival itself. Upstairs was where Santa and Mrs. Claus were set up, so kids could visit with them. There were elves, games, and assorted treats. None of which I got to look at very carefully, since the kids were dragging us away from there at full speed (they're both scared of Santa... sigh.). Downstairs, we looked at all of the Christmas trees and gingerbread houses that people had decorated. My friend, a baker who owns her own cake business, sculpted a bunch of cupcake ornaments for her tree. Another favorite was the "B.L.Tree," where all of the ornaments were large pieces of bacon, lettuce, or tomato (and the topper was a large B.L.T. sandwich). It was so funny! We also bought raffle tickets and entered to win six different baskets of goodies. So, we'll see!

From there, we zipped home and I got started on dinner. By the time we were done eating, it was time to leave again. We wanted to see the lighting of the town's official Christmas tree. It was SO COLD. I guess 25 degrees isn't that bad (it will get a lot colder than that, soon), but standing in it for half an hour was BRUTAL. I thought I was dressed warmly enough, but I wasn't. I should have opted for my snow gloves instead of my Isotoners, and I should have worn my thermal pants under my jeans. BRRR!!! But I was surprised at how many people were there, despite the weather. I mean, seriously... look at this picture. This was taken with the flash. I quickly learned that the flash wouldn't work, with all the tiny snowflakes/mist around us! These were invisible to the naked eye, by the way... but you could feel the ice in the air and on your face!

Finally, 15 minutes later than the scheduled time, they came out of the church (pictured on the right) and lit the tree. Hooray!

It was neat to be there, and the kids enjoyed it, but it was even MORE awesome to zip back to the car and try to warm up again! We drove home and promptly stood in front of the toasty pellet stove for a bit to defrost. Ahhh... I love that pellet stove. So, SO much! It really puts out an amazing amount of heat. Anyway... the kiddos went to bed shortly thereafter, and I wrapped Christmas presents. Now I'm drinking cocoa. It's the most wonderful time of the year!! It's also surreal to think that we were in California only a few days ago, haha! What a difference!