Snowy Without, Warm Within

Remember Frosty? This is him, Wednesday night.

Well, the snow began on Wednesday night, the 27th of December, and it continued through most of Thursday. It was an earnest, purposeful snow, and gorgeous.

We spent the morning inside, introducing Miles to his first board game playing experience: Candyland. It was a Christmas gift.

 

These are from Wednesday night and Thursday morning. On Thursday I made the rest of the sugar cookies; I had only baked about half of that batter! I always conveniently forget that Jon doesn't like sugar cookies. Poor me; I still have a couple dozen to finish. Mmm, and a can of frosting in the fridge... Hello breakfast.

Anyway, what I love about Rochester is that while late Wednesday night was a bit tricky to drive, and Thursday morning was rather dangerous, by mid-day on Thursday most roads were absolutely fine, despite that the snow continued. So I didn't think anything of putting the family in the car in the late morning on Thursday and driving to the Nicoloff's house. It was the second of our three visits there. We played and enjoyed each other and didn't bother with cameras, and then we all drove to her Dad's, my Uncle Doug's, house.

We stopped on the way to pay a visit to my grandparents, "Great-Grandpa Ben and Great-Grandma Peg" to Miles. We were pleased to see each other again!

Both are in their mid-80s and are fairly healthy, thank God! Grandma was as spunky and Grandpa as sweet and kind as ever. Love them both.

At Uncle Doug's, my Dad joined us and we had a play-in with Doug, Lynda, Rebekah, Matthew, Leah, Jon, Lissa, Tai-Tai, Abby, Adele and Miles. There was a lot of laughter and good conversation and vigorous play and okay, a couple of falls for the littlest, but it was all in all a lovely reunion.

And the trip to Rochester contained one more bonus: Dad stayed home with the kids so that Jon and I could pay our third visit to the Nicoloff's. All our kids miraculously were asleep at the same times for around 2.5 hours! I will treasure that time around the table with them, our good friends who are also family. We are going through so much that is the same; it was God-blessed to just laugh and have wine and feel the companionship. The memories from this trip are really candles in my heart.

Still, we were cheerful as we left at 11:00 the next morning for Maryland.

One more shot of Frosty: Thursday night, storm over.

I can't believe we have so few shots of Dad.... I wonder if anyone else can contribute some?