Today almost finishes a great vacation for Kipp, and a great time for all of us. Right now is a Currier & Ives moment - we went for an afternoon walk in the snow, came back and the kids are watching Bambi while it snows outside, and I'm cooking some delicious chili. We have a big snowman in the back, and his faithful snowpup at his side. They are great.

Kipp has taken every Fri in Dec off, due to some vacation time he needed to finish. Then he started Christmas vacation on the 18th. Monday he has to go back, which is very sad. We went to play at the snow in the mountains on Dec 19, and had a good time. Kipp's parents and his grandma came from the 23 - 28th. I had 4 Christmas Eve performances (not all in one day), and then Christmas itself was great. The kids had so many presents that they got tired of openeing them! Elsie was no problem at all, and stayed on the bottom floor. The kids mostly slept together in Kyler's room. The kids love having grandparents here.

The day after Christmas Kipp and I got to go to Seattle overnight all by ourselves. We really appreciated Grandma and Grandpa Howard watching the kids so we can get away! It was a lot of fun. We stayed at the Holiday Inn this time, not quite the Sheraton, but OK. We saw Lord of the Rings, and had great seats. It was a really good movie, and we both loved it. We ate dinner at Gordon Bierch, which was also good. We got to shop and browse, and had a nice time. We did some more shopping the next morning, and got back in the afternoon. The Howards and Elsie left the next morning at 8:00am and encountered some snow going over the passes. They got to Redding at 10:00pm that night. Even with that, they probably left just in time to aviod all of the cold/wet/snowy weather that came after.

Tues, 12/31 we got about 2 inches of snow. It was fun in the morning, but mostly melted in the afternoon. New Year's was uneventful, and we rented a movie - Pirates of the Carribean, which was great. Wed we got a few flurries again, and then Th a few flurries. Yesterday it was just wet and cold. Today, Sat 1/3 it has been snowing off and on all day, and staying below freezing. We fixed our snowman, which has fallen over, and played outside some. It's been great, with storms coming in and giving more snow. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 20s, so it might stay a day or two. Luckily, we don't have to go anywhere!