Happy Christmas

Even by Minnesota standards this has been a really snowy December - the temperature hasn't edged its way past freezing at any point either so there's a lot of snow around still. Here's Becky as we're about to head out early on Christmas Eve with a fresh layer of snow.
All the better for snowboarding and skiing on however. Which makes a nice change as our local hill is usually like boarding on concrete given that it is usually too cold to snow much and then it gets packed solid. Today however wiping out was almost pleasureable

Then Christmas day take 2. Take 1 was at 4:30am at which time Christmas cheer has not yet kicked in so we gave the kids a banana milkshake and then it was back to bed before making ourselves presentable at a more seemly hour.



Dan and Becky and the gingerbread house. This is the version of the story when Hansel and Gretel stumble upon a tiny house made of gingerbread and an old witch tries to capture them, but given that the witch is only 3" tall the children simply dip her in chocolate and bite her head off.
Talking of food we're leaning towards a beef rib roast these days as our Christmas meat of choice given that we've just finished the turkey from thanksgiving by now. Here's a couple of shots of my plate of food, Andy said I should put it onto two plates in order to be able to eat it but I'm not that greedy.

Dan doing a loaded Yorkshire pudding
Half a wheelbarrow of food and some red wine later

The only way to recover after a meal like that is with a nice long walk, in this case across the local lake again
Becky with her snowball maker (thanks to Uncle John) which means she is now armed and dangerous
My snow angel

Back home for blue and green trifle

Altitude Shoveling

Now that it hasn't gone above freezing for a few weeks it was time to take our first lake walk of the year.



The wind was so strong when it snowed that most of the lake has no snow on it at all. We've also got Claire staying with us and it was the first time she's been here in the Winter so we've been doing a few Wintery things.

Except of course that Winter hasn't begun yet, it only starts on the 21st of December, so this is just an Autumn recreational activity in Minnesota.
As we're expecting more 'Autumn' snow this week I figured that having a few feet of snow on the roof wasn't such a good idea either so it was time to do some high level shoveling.


Trouble is that all that snow has to fall somewhere, so it's time to shovel the steps again. This is harder than it might otherwise be as I've now broken 2 snow shovels this year.
Then it's youth group tonight where we've got a bad sweater party and white elephant exchange. I just wrapped up my present and it must be said that the law making grid lines on the reverse of wrapping paper can't come soon enough.

Cleverly timing our work end of year party with a snowstorm

 Time for our end of year work bash, unfortunately timed with a blizzard.  Here's the picture as we set out

 

 Got there OK and it was a big year for the team

LOTS of snow to clear the next day

Actually bored of shovelling

Irritating Boarding

This year Dan decided to learn snowboarding rather than continue skiing. So having warned him frustrating he would find the first few sessions we headed to the local slope and Dan very irritatingly picked it up really easily and was whizzing down slopes that I was basically on my bum the whole way down even after a bunch of lessons.

Here he is on our 3rd day on the slopes (season passes are wonderful things).


TAnd here's the rest of the family. We actually had a load of snow yesterday so it didn't hurt to fall over so I worked up enough bottle to get some decent air on some jumps too, no video as yet but expect some soon, and if not some footage from the hospital.