Happy New Year!!

We have had a busy month of December. The hot tub was delayed by a week because of snow, but it finally arrived on Sat. It was good timing as the play ended Sun. So we did our play, stayed for the end of the year party and came home to a warm hot tub. By Monday it was up to par, and since then we have been in many times and enjoying it!

With the play finished we went right into making Christmas presents. Since we did not have much time we went easy this year. We painted reindeer and made wall hangings to send out. Unfortunately, I did not remember to take pictures until after we mailed them. However we did take pictures of Diane making a quilt for her little cousin.


We got them mailed out on Monday and relaxed. We had the tree up, but not decorated. Needed to do that and wrap our own presents and enjoy then end of the year - or so we thought.

On Tues, Diane reported that she had a couple of bug bites. Odd for this time of year, but we didn't think too much of it. Later that afternoon she reported the few bug bites were now several. A quick check showed that they were not bug bites, but a rash. It started just below her armpits and went down to mid thigh. It looked like a heat rash gone mad.

We pulled up pictures on the web of different rashes, and none of them matched hers. It wasn't itching or hurting, so we let it be. We were thinking that she might be reacting to the chemicals in the hot tub. Wed it looked much better, but far from gone. On Thurs, Jon woke me up with telling me that she had the chicken pox. He knew this because his spots looked just liked the pictures of chicken pox we had seen on the web, even though hers didn't.

Yep, he had them again. I had had them a few times when I was little so I was hoping I was immune. But since I've had them more than once and Jon has had them more than once now, Diane's chances of getting them again seems pretty good.

Fortunately, Jon only got a few dozen spots, but Diane had hundreds. At least they didn't itch. So things went relatively well, even though it lasted through Christmas.



Jon started working on the bookshelves for the living room. We are taking the back wall and covering them with built in bookcases - we need the space. The bottom half will be cabinets with doors, with bookshelves on the top.







He is making great progress in the week and a half he has had (with chicken pox). Here's how it is looking. Some of the pictures are dark, but hopefully you can make them out. With luck, he will be able to finish them this month.




Snow came early this year, the locals tell us. It arrived early in December and never melted off. Usually doesn't arrive until nearly Christmas. Then it doesn't last - it comes and goes. We started out with about 18", then it melt back to around 8". We received another few inches before Christmas and now we are being dumped on. It's predicated that we will get up to 18" and maybe more over the next few days. Here are some photos taken at night.

This first one is of the back porch taken this summer. The snow picture is taken from inside the house looking out at the "missing step". It's hard to tell in the picture, but the snow is all the way up to the top step - it's not from drifts or shoveling either.

The next one is of the tiny apple tree that you can see straight out the same back doors. In this picture, taken this summer, it's the tree on the far right. Look at the lowest branch on the right side of the tree. The rock in the summer picture is completely missing under the snow now. The large mound in the winter picture is a snow mound that Jon made for Diane to sled down. And in the far back left corner of the winter picture, you can see the hammock that we hung this summer. We intended to take it down, but snow came early and hasn't left. The rope knot froze solid and we couldn't undo it. Here is another picture of the sledding hill and the hammock.


And here is a picture taken looking out the back of the mudroom and then another looking out the front. You can see the path that Jon blows clear to the garage and the one of the right is to the firewood. I tried to get some more out the front, but they did not come out. I'll take more of those when the snow stops. However, from what we can see, it appears the decorative fence at the front is buried under snow.


Here are some we took this morning. The first one is out the back door towards the east side of the yard. You can see all the snow that piled up on the table. The other one is out the front windows. If you look behind the birdbath, you can just make out the tips of the 3 foot tall fence. Currently the forecast is for no more snow through the end of next week, and it's suppose to get above freezing all next week - we shall see.

And for the record, even if we lose power we will stay nice and warm. We have a wood burning stove in the dining room that keeps the whole house toasty warm. In fact, we have started cooking on it instead of the stove top. We also can't light it if it's over 45 outside, because we will roast. Tried it back in Oct, and had to open the windows to cool the house down. We do have oil for the house heat, but we usually use the stove on days we are home - much more efficient. Three large armfuls of wood, takes care of it for the day and night - in fact many nights we have to open our bedroom windows to cool the room off enough to sleep.