Merry-making, snow, and a big-ass carrot

Look what happened! It looks like we'll have a white Christmas – hopefully without getting snowed in. We live a mile up an unmaintained forest service road, so if it snows too much we are stuck, which is fine most of the time, except when snow-laden trees knock down power lines. Then we have to melt snow on the woodstove for water, use the outhouse, and hope that our oil for the oil lamps doesn't run out since it gets dark at 4:15pm around here. Actually, some days it never really gets light at all, what with the grey cloud cover and all.

Our new obsession with cut-out paper snowflakes makes our windows look so pretty, if I do say so myself. I think I need to write a tutorial on how to do this on the blog some day, don't you think?

It has been cold here.  When I walk out to the barn to milk the goats in the morning, my footsteps crunch the frozen grass like glass shards.  The hungry goats greet me impatiently, looking all fluffed up with their bushy winter coats, waiting for their morning grain.

The goats' and ducks' water buckets are frozen, as are the trillions of puddles on our walks around the neighborhood.  

If you're wondering what our neighborhood looks like, this is it (on the only sunny day we've had for many, many days):

Steve took the boys on a fishing trip to the Olympic Peninsula for four days (where they hired a fishing guide and froze their butts off, only to catch zero fish.  But they still had a lot of fun, and the old, seasoned fishing guide was in awe of our unflappable, uncomplaining sons).  

Having all the male members of my family gone and hanging out with my little girlie at home was pretty special.  It's so much quieter, cleaner and peaceful in the house when it's just Eva and me.

We invited her friend over and baked cookies and home made pizza, listened to Christmas music, and after dinner I got to knit and drink a green smoothie by the fire while the girls played happily.  

I'm knitting Seahawks hats for my sons, even though I hate football... (Sorry if I'm offending any blog readers with this confession.  I grew up in Germany with soccer, so I'm not used to scary men with mega shoulder pads beating each other up...).

Last week, we said goodbye to Steve's parents in Seattle, where they boarded a flight after we had a lot of fun doing tourist stuff, like hanging out at the Pike Place Market.  There's an excellent German store with real authentic German food, where we gorged ourselves silly.  And a living statue tapping Kai on the shoulder?  It ain't Marblemount, I tell you that.

I will leave you with some of my favorite pictures of this week.  One shows my sons cooking dinner while Grandma looked on.  I had a wicked headache that day, so my boys cooked.  I love these guys.

The other picture shows yours truly, holding a carrot I dug in the garden, just as it began snowing like crazy.

In case I don't "see" you before Christmas: Merry Christmas!  May you experience the peace and love that this season actually stands for!