This is what I meant by snowy....

Somewhere around the California side of the mountain, near Canyon. 

15F, 2-3 ft of snow, 20 yds visibility, and heavy wind, maybe 35mph.

Playing in the Snow Pix

If you click on the photo above, you can see a range of pictures from the girls' Christmas adventures in the mountains.  It was near the storm's peak when most of these were taken.

Mush!

The kids got their sleds out and played in the snow which has been coming down very heavily.  I was up on the mountain which had very severe conditions.  Visibility was about 15 feet and temperatures were under 20 degrees and of course -- lots of heavy snow.  I actually got disoriented on some trails which I thought I knew pretty well but ... when everything is white it's hard to tell where you are.  Sometimes it's hard to tell which way is even down.

Winter sleigh ride!

So it's too windy to ski today so we took the girls on a sleigh ride (which was also very windy).  The horses were Belgian Draft Horse which weigh 2000 pounds each.  Unfortunately one of our cars has stopped working so we have to figure out why.  We will probably have to stay here an extra day since the highways are closed. They are expecting 3 to 5 feet of snow and winds up to 100 miles an hour at the top of the ridges.

It is good to be inside a nice warm house right now!

New ski suits

The girls got to play in the snow today in their new ski suits.  We tried ten (!) different rental shops but were not able to find ski boots that fit their small feet (yet).  So instead they played and ran around while I skied  the Nevada side of the mountain.  They love riding the gondola while wearing their new ski passes.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

Today was the first day of Advent, so we put up the Christmas tree, lit our candles, and wrangled all the accouterments out of the attic.  The girls munched on JoJo cookies, spilled their hot cocoa, and broke one glass ornament (each!) during the process.  The cats were torn between playing with the paper and Styrofoam scrunchies, or snoozing by the fireplace.

It's been raining for 3 days, and that seems to have caused problems with our exterior lights timer, so those have stopped working, with rather poor timing.  I've been preparing for months for an exam (taken yesterday) so today was the first family quality time in a while.

I took a few pictures with the Canon, and if you click on the picture above you can see them.