The second decade of the 21st century begins...

It's been a great, relaxing holiday season so far. Christmas was wonderful (despite colds and coughs), and the weather has not been too bad at all. I would like to wish all the readers of this blog a Happy New Year... I hope 2011 brings you happiness and good fortune!

Merry Christmas!

Oh, so close...

Only 1 more sleep until the Big Day... the excitement level is "HIGH", the NORAD Santa watch has begun, a few more presents have appeared under the tree, the family is starting to arrive... the only thing missing will be the snow for a "White Christmas"! Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Winter Gold

Despite a pesky canopy of gray clouds all day yesterday, the sun was able to show itself for a few minutes at sunset... lighting up the Winter sky with some lovely gold, orange and red highlights. The forecast is not optimistic for a White Christmas (more likely a gray, rainy one), so we'll take anything that's not all gray!

Winter Pale

A cold, pale winter sunset, on the last day of Fall, actually! It was very nice to see some blue sky for a few days, after a lot of gray skies and rain over the past few weeks.

Morning Glorious!

The spectacular view of the mountains at about 11am on Friday. The sky was blue, the snow was white, and the greenery was... well, it's still green! Winter has set on the mountains, but has not really hit the ground yet! We had some snow flurries this afternoon for about 2 hours, but nothing stuck... we'll have to see if it is a White or a Green Christmas! We're thinking of the family in London, currently getting snowed under... hang in there... you need something called a "snow shovel"!

Far, far away...

Grouse Mountain lights up the sky to the northwest on Thursday night. From our window to the top of the mountain is about 75 kilometres as the crow flies... so this is the 55-300mm lens pushed out to the max, on "night portrait" setting, on the tripod... not bad, hmmm?

The view through the window, part 2

The reverse view from our deck... looking back into the living room. Hasn't K done a wonderful job on the tree (as usual)? Only 10 more sleeps!

The view through the window, part 1

The neighbourhood at night, with the ever-increasing number of Christmas lights shining to remind us all of the season!

Add $50,000 for lakefront property!

So, we had a little bit of rain over the past week! It's turned the "prairie" into the "lake", complete with flooded fields, and for a couple of days, flooded roads. However, there are still people out there who believe you can drive in water that comes up to your doors... can you see the red tail lights on the adventurous ones?

Evening blues...

A cool, blue evening shot, from December 9th at about 4pm... the days won't be getting shorter for much longer, and the sun will start its slow journey back to us!

A Queen for the Princess...

After watching our Princess sprout up over the past year and still try to fit into a child's bed, the opportunity arose to give Princess an "upgrade"... needless to say, she was over the moon! Does this not look like a fun room?

69 years ago today...

Europe was in it's 3rd year of war when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, setting the stage for a true "world" war that finally ended on September 2, 1945, with an estimated 60,000,000 dead. These are some images of the Arizona memorial, the attack, and the iconic USS Arizona.

Blazing Shadows...

This is what happens when your son gets hold of the new camera... super sunset silhouette shots! The clearing skies and low clouds these past few evenings have led to some lovely sunset moments!

A Pretty Light Day...

The sun was shining brightly today, and the light was wonderful. These are the mountains to the north... the large one on the left is Mt Howay, I believe. The entire strip of mountains continues to be dusted in snow, and the level gets a little bit lower than the leftovers from previous storms. I guess with no Olympics this winter, we're guaranteed to get buckets of snow!

Kitty Kitty

Squiggles took advantage of the wonderful sunshine to spend the day outside today, looking at all the birds that were sooooo close...

A little Vitamin D should help...

I had to go all the way back to November 27th, but I managed to find some actual sunshine... if you need more, just jump back to September 2010... the year's best sunsets can be found there!

Even the cats are affected...

As you can no doubt tell from the photo, even the feline contingent is bummed out by the cloudy, rainy, foggy weather... the only thing to do is lie in your basket and dream of sunshine and mice!

Why the Weatherman calls it a "depression"...

This is pretty much the sight we had to look at for the past several days... yuck! The sun is forecast to peek out again on the weekend... fingers crossed!