I don't remember how this happened

Just uploaded some photos of paintings and found this little gem.  I can't recall how this moment came to be but it's a beautiful peaceful one worth remembering.

First Snow of the Year!

 We awoke to white this morning.  Time to pull out the hats, mittens, snow-veralls, and wool sweaters. 

 Everyone took a turn rolling in the snow.

 And a lovely flock of Canadians flew over.

 This one couldn't stop eating snow.

 First snow of the season calls for first hot chocolate of the season!

Viola wanted a guitar...

...So Papa made one for her.

It a hybrid guitar/ukelele/lute.  She's pretty excited and will soon be hitting the road for her first tour.

Sequoiadendron Giganteum

 Viola has her first research project on the Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron Giganteum).  Happily the forest service planted them all over town in 1998 so we could get some hands on time with a not so giant cousin of these huge trees.

 Sadly, our local tree didn't have any cones.  Perhaps because it likes a humid climate and we have, not that.

 We did find these awesome cones on another tree near by.  Everybody wanted to bring one home until they held it for a couple of minutes.  Charlie left his behind.

We gave them swords.

What were we thinking?

It didn't last long before they were attacking each other and the fun was over.

Just a couple of kittens

 Viola decided to be a cat for Halloween.  So guess who else had to be one too.  But after we dropped off cat #1 at school all he could say was "I want my sister cat!"  Pool little guy.  So I consented to being a Mama cat with pink nose and whiskers.  No photos to show for it.  Sorry.