Fun in the Snow

OK, so we could make this a post about language lessons. I was even tempted to type out the essay I did on "What I Did over the Christmas Break" and then discuss what I did right and wrong. Who knows, maybe I'll do that later, since I think some of you might be interested in a bit more linguistic stuff. However, I know that most of you are not as keen on the whole "what's involved in learning another language" thing and might prefer some lighter fare.

And so, a post on snow. We've had snow on the ground since October, so it's not like all of this is just recent, but we have added a good bit of snow over the past few weeks and, lacking anything else interesting to write about, I decided to go with that. Above you can see the snowmen someone built in our little park, complete with smiley faces. I always preferred the Calvin and Hobbes snowmen:
but agree that it might be a bit dark and hence not for everyone. Anyway, here's a few videos and pictures of a snowier world. I hope they help to dull your eagerness to live in a world of snow (the grass is always whiter on the other side of the fence, as it were).

The real problem with the weather here, if you want to call it a problem, is not so much the snow. It's not even really the cold, although that doesn't exactly help. It's more the constant greyness of everything. The sky is perpetually a depressing shade of grey, and when you combine that with the blocky grey buildings and icy grey streets, it just adds up to a lot of greyness. However, every once in a while the sun does break through:

and then it really is lovely. Here some kids have built themselves a snow wall and are having a rather tame snowball fight using it as an obstacle. As soon as the sun comes out like this, pretty much the entire neighborhood is outside enjoying it, because it doesn't last very long.

Two videos in one post! I don't think we've done that before. This one is of another one of those side benefits of snow - sledding! This is Steven's first ever trip down the hill. We were coming home from visiting some friends and didn't have our sled with us, but I decided to go down on my rear end holding him. The slope is quite icy where other sledders have used it, so you can go down sledless and it still works pretty well. I've even seen some more talented and balanced people than I go down on their feet. I don't know whether Steven enjoyed it or not; he's really too bundled up and cold to care much, it seemed.

Anyway, that's about it. I know it's not much, but I also know that it's been a while since we posted and I wanted to get something up here. Oh, and before I forget, the last post picture was of people in line to get their tickets. I thought it interesting how a bunch of people in a room, all seemingly facing random directions, could be considered a "line," but it actually worked pretty well. Carroll gets the points for recognizing a line among the chaos, taking it from the other guesses due to the humorousness of her continuous references to communism. :) One of these days I'll sit down and actually calculate who's in the lead in this contest. Until then, have a good week, and thanks for thinking of us.