One Year, One Day

It's been 366 days since we moved into our "new" house in New Hampshire. We were welcomed home by a snowstorm. Apparently, Mother Nature decided that we needed to celebrate our first anniversary with a snowstorm, as well. Last year, we got 14 inches. Thankfully, we only had 7 inches to shovel this afternoon.

Snapshots from Vacation

There are a few more photos here.

Longest Night

I hope that a solstice eve bonfire will become an annual tradition for my family.

Back to Real Life

My Las Vegas vacation was wonderful! Five days was just about perfect! I didn't make it out to see the Hoover Dam bypass and I didn't get to visit with friends as much as I would have liked, but I think I would have been dreadfully homesick for my family if I stayed longer. I hope that we'll be able to travel together as a family in a few years.

I'm afraid to even start a to-do list, as I'm sure it will overwhelm me. I'll try to sneak in a few computer minutes here and there to share some of the photos from my trip.

Happiness Is...

...my feet on sandstone
...a quilt shop hop
...being humbled by Utah's geology
...snow at Red Rock
...desert rain
...book club
...gelato at the Bellagio
...half-full flights
...solving a tricky sudoku
...coming home to the smell of balsam fir, sleeping babies and a clean house

Beautiful Blue

It's 65° F today! A mix of rain, sun, wind and clouds. I think the kids are getting sick.

Mild Winter?

We observed this fuzzy woolly bear caterpillar today at Fort Stark in Newcastle, New Hampshire. According to the old wives' tale, the width of the brown mid-section of this caterpillar indicates the severity of the winter to come. The wider the brown, the milder the winter. This is the caterpillar stage of the Isabella tiger moth, Pyrrharctia isabella. It will hibernate as a caterpillar over the winter and then spin a cocoon in the spring.

The weather today was certainly mild; about 10 degrees above normal. We enjoyed being outside in the sunshine on the beautiful seacoast. In addition the the woolly bear, we found a neat a skeleton (probably a bird), broke open milkweed pods to watch the seeds fly, took a lot of pictures and wrote our names in the sand.