Winter Wonderland

Living in a colder climate comes with its own set of challenges. I start to feel trapped in my home. Snow, ice and mud get tracked into the house. I have a hard time getting warmed up. We have a really short growing season.

Still, I really do love the winters here for a number of reasons.

I enjoy having our warm fires at night. It feels so cozy and brings the family together. We enjoy the tasty popcorn cooked in the fire and both our pets lounge on the rug until we put them to bed. I don't even mind too much when Danielle plays in the soot and ashes the next day.

I LOVE to iceskate. We have a short season, and I don't get a lot of opportunities with Danielle, but I've managed to go a couple times this year.

I am also happy to see my kids skating. It makes my heart happy to know that they will have fond memories of being out on the ice. Brandon and Connor both love Hockey and are pretty good at it.


The city also started a new tradition last year that has been popular. This weekend was our second annual ice sculpture event. We watched artists carving the ice for a couple hours. It was fascinating how they started from a stack of blocks and went from this:


To this:


From this:


To this:

And from this:


To this:



To this:


Our boys loved watching and even tried their hands at it with their pocketknives.


I could have stood there all day, but Danielle was fed up and tired after a while. The sculptures are just beautiful, and we had a nice sense of community as people walked up and down Main St. and visited with one another. It's times like these that I am happy to live in a small town where people know one another.


Tonight, Nathan and I went back down there after we put the kids to bed and as we were walking along a woman approached us. She thanked Nathan for bringing something so nice to our community. I was happy that he was appreciated. We are where we are supposed to be.