Winter, Winter, Winter

Though we may be chastised, though we may be shunned we must be bold and true to our beliefs and shout from the rooftops..."We love Winter!"


I had given up hope early in the season of seeing any hope of a cold winter with, well, actual cold.  And yet as I stand looking at the blowing leaves, with brown crispness and nary a sign of humidity or sweat, it is Winter I see.  I had wondered what we would do with our generous supply of cold weather gear, our downs, our hats and gloves and scarves.  It seems I worried in vain, for here upon our mountain home (at 1500 ft.) there are signs of frost, and crystal stalagtites formed from mountain run-off.  
The wind is biting, our painter is wearing long underwear (granted people down here were long johns if the temp goes below 60), my leather driving gloves are back out and ready to rumble and I can put on a cashmere sweater without passing out from heat exhaustion.  And as the final icing on the sweet-tea, there were a few snowflakes fluttering furtively around today as if this was new and uncharted snowflake territory.

Fall herself was pretty spectacular, with more and

 longer lasting colors than we have ever seen anywhere.  The leaves piled up so high on the side of the road that we could drive through with a very satisfying crunch, swish and swirl.  (I'm sure we fully endeared ourselves to our neighbors doing this)  We hadn't realized how much we couldn't see through the density of the trees until the leaves fell off.  For instance we had no idea that we were so close to the back of the school or the road on the hill above us.

Robb has somehow forgotten how to dress the girls warmly and keeps sending them to school with light coats.  Luckily indoor recess happens if the weather is colder than freezing, as apposed to Wisconsin were indoor recess happened if the weather was colder than 0 degrees F.   Them were tuff little kids in Wisconsin.  Also snow pants were required as part of the dress code.

 
I can't say it's been an easy adjustment moving again and to a place so different from whence we came, but it certainly has been a beautiful one.