We have had some incredible climate changes the last few days. The sheriff's office sent out a severe snow storm warning for Saturday and Sunday. And boy did we get dumped on. Saturday, there were cars in the ditch all over the interstate. We almost didn't make it up one of the steep hills in Bellingham. By Sunday morning the roads were slushy to bare in Bellingham. When we left church it started to rain. By the time we got out of Walmart at 11:00am it turned into snow and kept snowing for over 2 hours. I went outside to shovel snow and play with the kids. We saw a snow mobiler go up our street. John came out and said that the sheriff's office had released another severe warning, this time for flooding, heavy rain, and severe winds for Monday and Tuesday. By the end of Sunday, it had turned to rain with wind. Monday morning the snow was gone and it has been raining ever since. Job said it was 59 degrees this morning. What wild weather.

On Sunday the kids and I made a snow man and then had a huge snowball fight. It included a couple of neighbors and their kids: parents verses kids. It was so much fun.

We have our tree up. Only fell down once. We now have a new topper.

The kids have been into playing board games. The boys like yahtzee. They think they should play it for math (probably right) but it is too slow for Lona. She likes to play clue but needs to play on a team. We have been playing board games or chess at night.

I have been playing with one of my neighbor's lens. I told John that I need this particular lens. It is a fixed zoom 50mm f1.8 lens. It will allow me to take pictures inside without using a flash and not having to much "noise" in the picture. This is a "must" since we are going to Paris. I might have to take a picture inside a building that doesn't allow flash photos. It will also blur part of the picture for me. I'm trying to talk him into buying it for Christmas. I've pointed out all the reasons why I need it. Got to start thinking like an engineer to sell this. If not Christmas then Valentine's day is coming up. I have also found a book that has some great tips about travel photography. I want to go back to Barnes and Noble to read more of the book. One thing I learned is not to have people stand right next to a building and then take the picture but instead to have people stand closer to the photographer so they don't look so small and out of place with the building. I'll have to take notes.