We had a quiet Thanksgiving, with just us four. Delicious turkey meal, while it rained all day outside.
Earlier in the month, we had a nice 9-inch snowfall.
A true Alaskan, Landon runs the snowblower in short sleeves. (He remembers when it used to get really cold in Alaska, he says, back in the old days!)
Grayson shovels the hard to reach places.
Unfortunately, the snow didn't last too long, before it warmed back above freezing and the rain started. My little spruce tree that I've taken care of along the bluff, pictured here with branches laden with snow, is sadly seeing its last winter. Destructive spruce beetles swept through our neighborhood this summer, and it was attacked. Its bark is falling off, and its needles are all brown. I'll have to cut it down along with several others around the property, and burn them before the beetles crawl back out in May to spread to other trees. I don't look forward to cutting down my little spruce tree, but it did leave a small sapling behind, growing just a couple of feet away from its trunk. So now I'll look after 'little spruce's son'.
Dino is enjoying his time in the house these last few months. After the earthquake, we stopped worrying about the scratches he leaves on the floors, because the earthquake took care of that worry! And he has lost his eyesight. He's coming up on his 11th birthday, and has some other health problems that caused him to lose his vision. So he spends most of the evenings asleep on Grayson's bed. Grayson doesn't seem to mind so much.
Digging in!
Putting up the tree is our normal after-Thanksgiving tradition. Our first two years after we got married, we had tiny live trees that we planted afterwards. Then, the next 21 years we used the same artificial tree each year. But this year we decided to go bigger, and bring in a big tree for our 24th year that will hopefully last us another 24 years. The boys carefully put it together.
Throwback to 2008, smaller boys, smaller tree.
Mission accomplished.
Thanksgiving Day 2009, our first year with Dino.
This year's finished tree.
2008's finished tree.
Decorations are up, ready for the Christmas season!
Some videos to include:
One day recently, it snowed just a little bit, not enough to worry about shoveling the driveway. But if Grayson or Landon ever says they're bored, or if they spend too much time on video games, I can always find a "character-building activity" to keep them occupied. In this video, I sent Grayson out to shovel the tiny amount of snow on the driveway. He hit a frozen clump of ice on the driveway while pushing his shovel, and tried to take out his frustration on the shovel - - keep the volume up and listen to his rant at the end of the video. I love being Dad!:
Moved some cameras around to get a better view of the wildlife walking along the bluff behind the house. This little bull had a rough go of it during the breeding season, he had some wounds on his head, and a slight limp:
A couple of weeks later, he seemed no worse for the wear:
