Winter Wonderland

Hi all. We just got back from a trip to Minnesota over my Winter Break. It was phenomenal. Brie says she felt like she had gone home for a time. The weather was around -10 degrees when we got there, and fluctuated between 20 below and 40 above while we were there. The “bitter cold” really wasn’t all that bad unless the wind was blowing. Even with wind, it wasn’t so bad with a leather jacket or something else to cut the wind. Honestly, all you folks who have moved from Minnesota to this brown desert because it is “too cold” up there are a bunch of whiners. When the air is still, -20 there feels like 40 here.

They say the heat here is a “dry heat,” I think the cold here is a “dry cold”. Brie and the boys are able to cope much better with below freezing temperatures there than the overnight chills here. It’s just a matter of layers. I think the Minnesota natives that move here are just too lazy to shovel their driveway every couple weeks. It has nothing to do with the cold.

Plus, the boys had a blast playing in the snow. In the Summers here, you can either stay indoors or go swimming. In the Winters there, you can stay indoors, have a snowball fight, build a snow man or a snow fort, go for a walk (as long as you remember your layers), or walk to the nearest fishing hole (no more than 20 minutes walk in the land of 10,000 lakes). We had a really great time. We’re looking forward to Jenny’s wedding in June, but we also hope we can make Winter or Fall visits a semi-regular occurrence. The boundless life of spring and and a hot, lazy summer will no longer feel the same without a frosty, winter-wonderland with which to compare it.

We had a really hard time coming home, although no small part of that was due to the boundless hospitality of Uncle Charlie and Aunt Pat (and the rest of the Roth and Darnauer clans). We love you all and hope to see you soon.

Below are a couple videos. There is also a picture gallery if you click on “Pictures” to your left (or click here if you are reading this on a RSS feed). Enjoy!

Spencer

update Brie just told me (while warming her hands by sticking them in my shirt, “I think I need to go back to Minnesota to defrost.” What did I tell you about a “dry cold”?

O Winter! ruler of the inverted year, . . . I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturb’d Retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know.
–William Cowper (1731 – 1800), Task (bk. IV, l. 120)

Pod Children

This post is a response to all those people who keep saying that as Zephyr gets older, he looks less and less like Connor. Now I’ll grant that they’re personalities are quite different, but they still look really similar. Below are pictures of them both at about 10 months. Zephyr is the one with the hair. Plus his pictures are clearer because we didn’t have a digital camera when Connor was a baby (thanks, Daniel!). The two right on top of each other (if yours looks like mine) where Connor is in the tub, is especially eerie Enjoy!!