Home for the Holidays

I’m so thankful that for the first time in seven years I was able to spend Thanksgiving with my parents. I also got to spend Christmas and most of January. As you can see, my parents weren’t the only ones glad to see me get some rest at home.

Mom’s pretty fall flower arrangement and Iowa indian corn added to the mood...

And her hours in the kitchen added to my waistline : )

Just moments after I took this picture, Bogie (the Great Dane/Lab dog) stood next to the table, and while our backs were turned, licked out half of the pumpkin pie with three swipes of his big tongue! Mom laughed so hard that she couldn’t properly punish him. And she stayed up until almost midnight making another pumpkin pie...

Most of this yummy relish tray was Mom’s home canning! It was so good that there were only two pickles left by the end of Thanksgiving dinner with Grandpa Minikus, my Uncle Kevin & Aunt Margo, Margo’s parents, Mom & Dad and I.

Christmas morning I woke up to sparkling frost patterns on my bedroom window! (the new background on the blog is also frost on the window - I did colorize it, of course)

A storm had covered everything in 1/2 inch of ice and created thousands of 3 inch icicles, then dumped 6-8 inches of snow.

Unfortunately, it was so cold outside that I could only take pictures for about 45 minutes before my gloved fingers couldn’t bend to push the buttons anymore.

Mom brought the barn cats into the basement for fear that they would get snowed in there without any thawed water. It’s a good thing she did because it snowed for the next two days - a real Iowa blizzard!

Haven’t the “kittens” grown?! I tried to repeat the picture I had before by holding all three monsters in my arms. But even with a bowl of wet cat food I couldn’t get them to co-operate...

It was fun being snowed in. Christmas presents, though nice, were not half as nice as getting to spend so much time together. (Speaking of presents though, I got a really neat one. Dad, a coin collector, bought me, from Littleton Coin Company, a real Roman coin from circa 100 B.C. - the type the widow would have given in Jesus’ day, a tiny bronze “mite.” It is crazy to hold something in your hand that is so old!)

OK, maybe we got a little bit of cabin fever after three days... But Roxy, Mom’s dog, still wanted to cuddle!

Dad made a new knob for my crockpot out of a piece of firewood! It was such a nuisance when the old handle broke; I am so glad for a new one. You can see the piece of firewood he used and how he put my name on it under the finish. (he even put a little R with a circle around it so it looks like the cookware trademark is Toni : ) How’s that for a designer kitchen appliance?!

And the snow continued on... Mom used to have to reach up over her head to fill these bird feeders! The drifts were over waist high in many places of the yard.

Matt and Josie needed to leave Dec. 28th, and our quarter mile driveway was too deep for the neighbor’s tractor. So we called another neighbor from eight miles down the road. He took one look from his big tractor and went back home! Three hours later he came driving up our road in his CAT with a box grader on the back! Unfortunately he got stuck on the second pass and Dad convinced him that it was good enough. After a lot of shoveling by hand, we were able to send Matt and Josie tobogganing down the hill in their station wagon. They made it!

January 4-6th we had another blizzard and very cold temperatures (like air temperatures down to -30F!). After the storm, the snow crystals still being blown around in the air created this beautiful snowbow! By tomorrow (Jan 15th) we are supposed to get up to 34F, so our winter wonderland is going to start to melt away. I’m sure Mom and Dad will be glad to not have to park at the neighbors and walk up and down the driveway to get to and from work!

Finally got to go to my sister's place spend some time with her family. The boys have grown so much!

The warmer temperatures caused the snow to evaporate and make dense fog in the air that formed thick needles of frost at night!

And so the winter wonderland continues!