In case anyone was wondering ...

what a car looks like at 11 p.m. buried under a foot and a half of snow at the light-rail station after a major storm, here's the answer.
Unlike last week, when the blizzard had blown away some snow and there wasn't ice on the ground when the snow started falling, I had to have help getting my car out of the parking lot. Luckily someone had a shovel available, and there were people available to push so I didn't have to call Kevin. Of course, Kevin did have to dig and push to get the car in the driveway when I finally got home.

Merry Christmas week

That whole blizzard thing got my schedule out of whack, so now Christmas is over and it feels like I should be asking where all the time went.
But the things that really matter, such as focusing on Jesus having been born, should be our focus, of course, and we were able to read the Christmas story from Luke and act it out with one of our nativity scenes Sunday night. (Cows and goats -- there's some question about which it is that the scene involved includes -- aren't specifically mentioned in the Bible, unfortunately.)
The quote of the day for Monday, from Laura, is related to Balloon Lagoon, a game she received. Kevin and I were in the kitchen, and she came in to tell us that she'd been able to spell corn all by herself in the fish pond part of the game. Apparently our reactions weren't what she was looking for, because she then said:
"Can I get a high-five over here?"

Not as morbid as it sounds

Last night I finished reading A Dead Man in Athens by Michael Pearce. I haven't read any of other books in the Dead Man series but might now. At the very least, it's an interesting perspective on pre-World War I Greece and the Ottoman Empire.

Let it melt, let it melt, let it melt ...

but only if it's not going to refreeze immediately.
When I got brave enough to open the back door this morning, I was met by this:



We won't be going out that way for a while, I don't think.
The view out our living room window. Yes, as you can tell from the reflection, I took this when I still was in my bathrobe. The snow in the foreground is the street out of our neighborhood.

Remnants of the blizzard

There are walls of snow everywhere at the Mineral Station; the main drives are like tunnels. Here's the huge one I mentioned, which I couldn't get a closer picture of because I was running late and couldn't make my way across the iced-over parking lot:



This isn't my car, but it's very similar to what my car looked like when I got back to the lot Friday morning:



Only half of this staircase was cleared. That snow's about 3 feet deep:



This mound of snow is our front yard. The lawn is even with the driveway, at least in theory. Now, the snow comes about halfway up the side of the car (and makes it nearly impossible to get in and out of the car, I might add):

The big blue bear beats the blizzard

One of the more attractive features of the revamped Colorado Convention Center is the statue of a large bear peeking in an upper-level window. As I took the train to work Wednesday, a few hours after the blizzard began, he wasn't doing very well, particularly when viewed through the window.



It was a whole other situation this morning as I walked from the Holiday Inn, where I'd spend the past two nights, to the Convention Center/Performing Arts train stop en route to try and dig out my car at the Mineral Station. He's a whole new bear.



More photos later. There are some 18-foot mounds of snow at the Mineral Station that I'm going to try to get a shot of when I go back to work this afternoon.

The dangers of ballet

Saturday night we went to the Colorado Ballet for The Nutcracker. It was a lot of fun. But during the Snowflakes and Crystals number, Laura turned to me and whispered, "Mom, I can see their panties!"
I guess one advantage of being Clara is that you get to wear a longer dress.

Texas City patty cake action

During our recent trip to Houston, aunts Cindy (in black shirt) and Babs (the blur) demonstrated a complicated patty cake game for Laura and Nikki (cousin holding Laura). It was pretty entertaining.
It also was warm, which always is good.
And the next day at the Houston Zoo, Laura got to brush a goat.


Yep, we're an exciting bunch.

Of laptops and Moon Sand

This morning Laura picked up a book, which was wrapped and under the Christmas tree, and said, "This is for me from you and Dad. I think it's a laptop." When I told her I doubted it was, she said, "Yeah. A kid laptop." Do laptops reproduce?
Later, she was writing a letter to Santa (I'm not sure why, as I didn't suggest it). The letter said, "Dear Santa, I want a laptop for Christmas. From Laura."
But the reading material she picked up during lunch was even better.
There was a Target receipt lying there, and she started reading it. "Where's my Moon Sand?" she asked. I told her she wasn't supposed to see that receipt, which was from a shopping excursion by Kevin yesterday (though I left out that detail). She said, "This says Moon Sand. Where is it?" I replied that perhaps Santa has bought it for Christmas.