Vacation Download - Part 2

When last we left our intrepid mountain adventurers, they were anxiously watching the hail on the balcony to see if it would turn into snow.

Which it did - in most spectacular fashion!

I only wish I had the real photography skills to do justice to how beautiful it was.

Another view from the balcony of our cabin.

I was trying to get a picture of a Manazanita tree - it's the one with the deep reddish trunk and branches. They are truly spectacular in the snow!

This is the view from our driveway looking down the road towards the next cabin.

And further down the road.

Driveway of the cabin next door - complete with small child making a snowball.

Lest you think we were the only ones enjoying the snow...I present to you the snowy footprints of our midnight visitors. At least three raccoons walked across the driveway and around the house at various points. Oddly enough, the left the trashcan alone, but they sure investigated everything else with great thoroughness. And look how cute their little footprints are!

We had daytime visitors, too.

A whole family of deer showed up to check out the woods around our cabin and the driveway next door.

This one was nice enough to pose for me.

"Who you callin' 'Bambi'?"

They had a fawn with them and I desperately tried to get a picture of it, but could never get a clear shot.

The humans enjoyed the snow, too. There's my little hot dogger up at the very top of the sledding hill getting ready for his next run. Notice how the left half of the roof has no snow on it? Just as he got up there and started to get set, the ENTIRE LEFT HALF of the roof full of snow crashed to the ground. Missed him by about 2". His response? "AWESOME!!!"

Here he goes sliding by. He turned circles. He went down head first. He went down head first AND backwards. No fear. It was a joy to watch.

KJ

P.S. Probably my favorite story of the weekend (well, okay, after the deer - because they were WAY cool!) is the story of Ryan's boots. We'd gone up there with a pair of hand-me-downs from the neighbors and after he used them the first day, they rubbed a blister on one heel. So, we went into town in search of new boots for him. It's a VERY small town so choices were extremely limited but we managed to find something. The shop owner was giving me all the details on the boots and happened to mention that they were "100% waterproof." I don't know why, but THAT particular detail stuck in Ryan's head and for the next 3 days he told everyone we met that his boots were "100% waterproof." He told shop keepers. He told the waitress at the restaurant. He told the other kids on the sledding hill...AND their parents. He told the clerk at the grocery store. He told the counter guy at the pizza place. He told EVERYONE.

He even reminded me as I was unloading the car when we got home: "Don't forget my boots, Mom. They are 100% waterproof."