Happy New Year

to all of my blogging friends!

Another year gone already! It's hard to believe I have been doing this daily for two years now. It's been very enjoyable for me, and I've had a great time doing it. I hope you have enjoyed it, as well! And, yes, I plan to continue.
The year is ending in a wet, dark, dreary way. We still have some snow, especially on the lower part of the driveway. Seems like it's taking forever to melt, but that is better than melting all at once and flooding. The swamp is filling up, though. It seems to be late this year - we didn't get much precipitation before the big snow, I guess.

One of the gifts I received was this stained glass piece from my mother. She has always loved the colored glass, as do I!

This is the last of the Christmas photos, I promise! I had to take our tree down today, as it was rapidly drooping lower and lower! It was pretty scrawny to begin with, so we knew it wouldn't last long, but we enjoyed it. I love the colored lights and glittery reflections, and the fact that we have a live tree in the house.

I took Cody to the airport today; his holiday vacation is over. He'll be glad to get back to his own bed - he didn't get much sleep while here, spending each night at a different friend's house, staying up until the wee hours in the morning. On the way home, a view of downtown Seattle, sitting in the sun, from the middle of a shower.

Good-bye, Cody!

The thaw is here. Things are dripping all around, patches of bare earth appear. The warmer air is creating a low fog. I was able to get my car out for the first time in 10 days - it felt good to be back on the road! The most snow now is all that has been shed off the roof, piling up against the house. Here on the south side, all of the roof is clean, but on the north side, melting is much slower, and half of the snow still remains, but at least it is falling off in small chunks. We haven't had as much plant damage as we feared - those shrubs are pretty resiliant!

As it continues to warm up marginally, the roof snow is creeping southward. We woke up to a 2 foot overhang,

the result of half of the snow sliding down the roof.

Happy Christmas to all of you!

We had a visitor at the apple tree today, enjoying the spread.

We also had a surprise visitor in the house - Cody arrived from CA in the middle of the night, and slept under the tree for us to find when we woke up! It was a wonderful surprise, for sure! Above are all of us - David, Cody, Barb, Cory and me.

Getting ready to open presents - sorry about the tree branch in your face, Barb!

Amy watched the action with mystification.

Cody

Cory

The snow is melting a little bit,

and slowly sliding off the roof. We're glad it's going slowly, but it's fun to pull down what is hanging over.

I'm hanging one of my new ornaments on the tree. It's a tradition to exchange ornaments every year with my sisters and mother.

Christmas Eve dinner - we had our family here, and several friends. We all ate way too much, and afterwards we played dominoes. Fun!

Table's all set and ready to go.
The melt has begun - it has finally warmed up to above freezing, so things are dripping and melting. The load of snow on the roofs is beginning to inch it's way down and fall off, bit by bit. We keep hearing the big Ka-thump! overhead, and another pile of snow builds up on the ground. We were worried that it would all come off at once, but luckily it's happening slowly, so hopefully there won't be much damage.

Fun with Christmas lights.

The christmas tree is reflecting in our sliding glass doors.

The sun came out, and the icicles on the roof began to drip. The trees are reflected in the drop.

The poor little birdies keep hitting the windows - this one huddled in a bush while it recovered from the shock. It eventually flew off.

Long blue shadows this morning.

The front entry from the driveway.

Going out the driveway for the first time in a couple of days, the trees are loaded and leaning over the road. Amazingly, we've only lost a few branches.

We did have to shovel the snow off the deck - you can see the depth on the railing! This part of the deck is under the roof, and we needed to remove as much weight as we could before all the snow on the roof slides off.

My fun pink boots. The snow is up to the top of them - at least 12 inches.

This is a shot of our front entry walkway. On the left was last Sunday, the 14th, and on the right is today, Monday the 22nd. We got more than 12 inches of snow over the past week, and the temp was never above freezing.

Loads of snow overnight, but the temps are getting a bit warmer. Still, the poor little birdies are having a tough time, and some are hanging around the house, under the porch or up against the foundation. This little guy wanted in the window in the worst way. We've had lots of birds hitting the windows, too.

We decorated our little tree today - it's a bit unusual, but always pretty with all the lights.

And here's an overview of some of the cookies we decorated yesterday. They're a lot of work, but everybody's favorite, so worth the effort.

Yesterday was Cory's 25th birthday, but he wasn't able to come over, so we celebrated today with a prime rib dinner, and birthday cupcakes.

Cory brought friends over - they went sledding and helped decorate cookies. From left: Nate, Aron, Cory, Andrew and

Just before dawn, the moon was still in the sky.

Sledding in the driveway with sleds, snowboards, and a boogie board.

It's still below freezing, and the next storm is due in tonight, with more cold, snow and the added bonus of high winds. Keeping fingers crossed that the power doesn't go out!

Happy Birthday, Cory!

Clear and sunny today means cold, cold, cold! But the sun brings sparkle and glows to the icy landscape.

The bright blue sky offers a bold contrast with the green trees covered with snow.

A few stray clouds offered a vastly different sunset from yesterday's.

Well, we really got the snow today! Above, snow on a madrona branch.

We got over 6 inches. The roads are packed with snow, and when it freezes overnight, it will be a real mess!

After snowing most of the night and day, the sun started to show.

We had several trees overloaded with snow fall into the driveway, so David had to cut them down with his chainsaw.

That's him behind the falling snow.

We also had to sweep the heavy snow off some of the shrubs,

after seeing how this rhodie got broken.

The house peeks out from behind the snow-laden cedars.

At the end of the day, it cleared a little to the west, and the setting sun added some surreal color to the clouds.