Anne's Adventure Picnic

So, Anne showed up last week and had this great idea that we should go for a picnic. So we did. Sort of. In the mid minus twenty degrees Celsius wind chill blizzard....


Well, to be honest, it turned out to be a bit cold. We decided maybe picnicking was a bit more than we could chew. So we relocated the food part of the picnic to the relative sanity of home.

In the video you can see Istra frozen to a sled being pulled. Valkyrie was pretty excited to be off-leash and bouncing around. Anne's little dog Moh runs back and forth. Up in the distance (there is a photo tacked onto the end of the video) you can see Emeth being pulled on his sled by Ivonka's big old dog Niko (with Ivonka mushing them on).

It may not have been the most picnicky picnic ever to be picnicked. But it was certianly an adventure... you never know what's going to happen when Aunty Anne shows up.

After the Ice Storm

I believe in Santa Claus, says her hat. But she doesn't, and will loudly tell you so. She likes the braids. Glittering ice thickly encrusts the cracking trees around her, and water foul fluff themselves at her Soreled feet. But she can't see beyond her snowy braids. The temperature has dropped. All change is cold.

In the face of Frosticus, nothing left but the chilling lie-down attack. How many HP? Wait! Frosticus has called his Duckasaur minions. How many HP? Ice hands. Ice feet. No energy. No Ex. Bill bashers! Activate anti-thermal boots, and let drop the cryo-crystalized shard, and cryo-cry: the temperature has dropped. All change is cold.

And so began our Christmas wanderings... navigating heaps...

The Stollen stalks us...

Through strange, yet hopeful, and even sometimes joyous echos...

... of memories, and meanings, beyond within ourselves, accumulating ...

In a mystery we pray will be revealed, and the beauty of will persist.

(Click any pic for more shadows...)

First house-sitting morning...

As part of our Christmas Holiday sojournings this year, we are dog & house (and fish) sitting for a week or so. When we arrived yesterday there was a mere dusting of snow. This morning we awoke to this...

That is Selena way out there shovelling the driveway, having all the fun. The kids and dogs were meanwhile out in the backyard, which looks like this....

This old, small, cottage-like gem of a house, in Toronto, backs onto the Humber river! (It is, of course, utterly surrounded and dwarfed by newer huge houses on all sides... except the back.) It's ridiculous.

Anyhow, these are just a few photos from our first morning, there will likely be more eventually. But until then, meet our gracious hosts: a spry Tie and the noble Thor....

Stunted Snowfolk

This eerily warm winter has been toying with the children again. They were so excited this morning to find that it had snowed an unexpected amount over night. I had to tell them not to get too excited because the temperature was going to be so warm that probably all the snow would melt by the time they got home from school. They wept bitterly, in their hearts. And whined a lot out loud. And also were extra slow getting to school, due to having to jump in as much snow as possible, while it was there, all the way. 

Anyhow, all the snow was not gone when they got home. Merely almost all of it was gone.

The kids kicked into gear. Not a moment to lose. Before it all melts! They scraped up all the snow they could find, before it was too late, to spawn some snowmen. Short, lumpy, sickly looking snowmen. But... well, at least they have each other. If you look closely you'll even see that they're holding hands. It's true.

Istra also would like to point out her snowman has legs and is wearing pants. 

And that's how we're coping with "winter" so far.