Livin' In A Snow Globe: Part One

December delivered!  

What I mean by that is not only was it my favourite holiday season, but it was also a great month in terms of our weather!  

We were delivered colder temperatures AND snow!  This all makes for a very happy ME!  

We had a great list of ideas for fun in December - family walks, snow shoe, toboggan, skate - and we knocked them off over a few days outside in our gorgeous snow globe-like setting!  

Perhaps the most beautiful day of them all, in my mind, was December 26th.   Our Christmas day gift of snow extended into the next day!  There are no photos of this day, but it was a crisp, gorgeous and quiet morning to wake up to.  We went on an early family walk.  It. was. stunning.   We walked along an old highway road where the canopy of trees above us hung low and close to our reach.  The light-as-fluff snow covered all the branches and there was barely any hint of earth tones.  White snow, blue sky, colourful snow jackets = gorgeous.  As Kevin and I reached up to shake the snowy branches, the snow would sift off and onto the heads of the girls.  They giggled, we smiled.  The lightened branches would spring back to a position they were more familiar with.  

Fresh.  Quiet.  Beautiful.  I won't forget this walk for those reasons.  

Inspired by snowflakes, we had attempted some fun bokeh with my camera over the holidays.   Karis was seeing stars!

This was so much fun but not as easy as I thought it would be.  Perhaps I will work on it again next year to figure out how to get it to work better.  Manual settings, I am thinking.

oops.  this should have been the snowflake paper punch, but you get the idea.

This is my favourite ornament to photograph each year.  I love that its paper, that it has a snowman on it and that its blue.

Oh hello, me and all of my main floor!

I headed outside to snap a photo of our "snow" lights on our home.  

Oh, the sight of this tree just barely covered with fresh snow made me smile.

The light outside and under the street light in the falling snow was awesome.  Karis stayed only so long for me to photograph....

...so I had to go inside to recruit another model.
She hesitated, but then we agreed to no more than 10 minutes....

And bam!  I got my favourite photo under the street light.

a faster shutter speed might have captured the snow faster but for what skill I had right then, I love it!  

With the snow falling over a number of days, we knew our "home away from home" would be a fun place to romp.

a gorgeous 10km drive under a canopy of trees and snow - yes please!  

The girls were looking forward to the snow, snow, snow!

We arrived to find that there was much more snow than we had expected.  Sadly our stored trailers needed some TLC before we were off on our own adventure.  Kevin had to work on his structure that had collapsed onto our trailer.  Thankfully no major damage occurred.

The snow was so deep that when Kevin and I punched through it we were up to our legs.  Thankfully the girls, being so light, were able to stay on top!  

After some trailer TLC we set out on an adventure.  Kevin had the idea that we would walk in and all the way to the cabin.  I wasn't down with this plan because I would have hoped for snow shoes, so it took a bit of convincing.  But once we hit a stride, it became easier to make it through the snow.  

He pulled the kids.  I pulled the supplies.  

This land changes so much from season to season.

So incredibly beautiful.....

There were trees down or fallen all along our walk in.
Nature sure has a way of re-designing itself, doesn't it!?

And then we arrived!

Such a different sight in the winter, eh?

Kevin takes great excitement in using the cabin that he build in August.  The humidity in it was bone chilling. Although the temperature warmed as we stayed inside, the dampness in the air made everything extra steamy!  

Not planning to do this today, Kevin assured us that he had "supplies" on hand in the cabin.

Water from snow for a freeze dried Chicken teriyaki meal and a can of Beef-a-roni.  The lunch of champions!

steamy! 

Chef Kevin loving it!

Before leaving we wandered down to the river bank were we took the rare opportunity to slide down the bank!  Only in the winter could we do this!

Get ready....

Go!

It will be so funny to look at this photo in the middle of summer to remember that we had done this!  What a fun place to be in any season!

Up next on the agenda of outdoor fun - Serious Tobogganing at the Whistler Olympic Park.  

All geared up and ready to go!

Weeeeeee!

Kam was so funny this day.  She could not stay away from the side walls!  She was constantly going down and then crashing off to one side or the other.

There she goes.....

After a lesson of leaning to the right, leaning to the left to inspire a straight direction.....

She still managed to find the sidelines......

But was super smiley about it all anyway!

We can see where this is going, right?

Yes, that is the ceiling of our snow globe!    

The Whistler Olympic Park tobogganing hills are at the base of the 2010 Olympic ski jump venue.  It looks pretty awesome when you look back at it all, eh?

It sure would be one hell of a ride down from the very top!

Snow loving gal!

I gave Kamille my camera to take some shots of us three going down!

Ha!

Bad Ass Dad.
No going down head first or on your tummy - its the rules!

"Whatever!"

"more! more! more!"

Hello Little Head!

What a fun family activity!

The slope isn't massive or super fast by any means, but the kids think its fast and that's all that matters, really.

Bum slides!  -  Also a No-No on the rule list!
We were girls gone wild!

We finished this day in the best way possible - lunch with a pint of beer at a pub in Whistler!  Perfect!

We didn't get to it this time, but the Olympic Plaza will be on the list for family skating one day in the future!  Such a great place to be - with a lot more winter snow on a day to day basis than at home!

By this time in December I was pretty much in love with snow and the idea that were were Livin' in a Snow Globe that had come to me from a blog post that I had read somewhere.  I was truly in love with the white flaky reward that came with the rush of Christmas!  

Snow kept us calm, it slowed us down, it allowed us to take in fresh air.  It inspired us to keep things light and bright.  Well, that might be an exaggeration.  What I mean is that I freakin' love sunny snowy days!

More to come......