Gnome-nappers

This is Woodward, my traveling gnome. He sits on this fine tuft of grass at my desk during the day. When I leave work, I take him with me because I've grown to attatched to him to risk losing him to gnome-nappers.

Kellie

Friday, prompted by the warmth of spring, I headed out to do some photo-exploring on one of the bicycle/walking paths near our apartment. I didn't get very far (there was enough to keep me and my camera busy in a short distance). Those pictures are above.

In the process, I encountered a great place for portrait photography just off the road. Sunday, I shot some portraits of my sister-in-law, Kellie.

Camp St. Croix

Last week I headed to YMCA Camp St. Croix in Wisconsin to help my friend and colleague, Derrick, shoot some pictures for an article he was writing. You can see a slide show of more images here.

Weather Chops

All winter I have been trying to earn my weather chops. I think I finally did yesterday, while test driving mountain bikes in sleet.

Breakfast

Morning on the farm

I snapped these on our way back from our weekend trip to the Walsh farm as the morning sun began burning away an evening dew.

Rabbits and Spines

Things I've been preoccupied with this week at work:





For some serious bunny-action (more photos and video) head to Thisweek Farmington.

Black Ice

Update: Dennis had surgery to repair a neck injury. He is now at home recovering. Thank you to everyone who has been thinking of him and his daughter.

My mom just called me from Southern California to tell me that her boyfriend, Dennis and his daughter had been in a bad car accident. They slid on black ice in Alpine on their way back from attending a funeral in Texas. Their car rolled off of an embankment and his daughter was thrown from the vehicle. Luckily both are doing fine. Dennis may need surgery to repair a broken cervical disk, but considering what happened, they are in good shape.

On the eve of a significant snowfall that will likely continue through both morning and evening drive-time, I wanted to remind to everyone heading out in this bad weather to be cautious while driving. And, please think of Dennis and his daughter as they recover.

Hello, Starshine...

Good morning; happy Sunday.

(and a very happy birthday to Heather)

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow

So, we got another storm at the end of this week. It hit, lovingly, on Wednesday night and grew to Blizzard-like conditions by 3:30 Thursday, as I headed home. The CR-V:



The roads:



Other than an on-ramp that I had to literally coast down because it was full of snow, I didn't have too much trouble on the way home. Though I had to drive slow, it didn't take as long as I feared it would.

After both storms, the snow outside our apartment has accumulated to this:





We're not blanketed like that everywhere, but there is a lot of snow.

...Sometimes Come Around

This is part two of a two part blog about the snow, which appears below. The Weather Service calculated the snow amount at about 10 inches. I'm not sure if that's what we accumulated, or what was the snowfall amount. Because of drifting, we had areas with under and inch of snow and some, as you will soon see, with feet of snow.

This is the same tree that appears in the before shot.




I like to call these Snowdunes:





Just to give you an idea of how deep that drift is:











But, trust me, I'm not complaining. We were pretty lucky. Many parts of Iowa and Southern Minnesota were blanketed with ice before the snow.

Snowy Days and Sundays

This is a two part post starting with what welcomed me into morning a few days ago:



And from the inside out:



This weekend brought the biggest storm I've witnessed yet. In anticipation, I took this shot before it began:



I'll post the after pictures tomorrow, but here's a sneak peak of the view from our window mid-storm:

Kiwi

I'm enjoying them.

Birthday Advenutres

We started the day with a little Connect Four at Chatterbox Pub in Highland Park:







Then headed to some non-pictured events, including:

*buying ice-skates (surprisingly difficult; we finally found them at Hockey Giant, a store next to REI off of 494)

*ice skating at Lake of Isle in Uptown. This allowed me to accomplish one of my goals for this winter –– ice skating outdoors. It was Joe's first time ice skating and he did well. We're hoping to make it back on the ice before everything thaws, but with the nearly 40 degree temps we saw today (and, believe me, I'm not complaining) that might not happen.

*a show at Brave New Workshop called Pluto, and Other Lies My Teacher Told Me. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. If you are able to go, it comes highly recommended.

The show didn't start until ten, so it was pretty late when we got out, but we still made it over to Byerly's (the fancy grocery store near our house) to buy a birthday cake. We'd found this cake a few days before, in preparation for Valentine's day. It's layers of chocolate and vanilla cake with chocolate and white chocolate frosting. It's excellent with a side of raspberries, as well.

We also picked up some candles so I could make a wish:






and, no, I won't tell you what I wished for ...

The Rest of Valentine's Day

As I said, we started the day with breakfast:





As everyone seemed to like the picture of the cookies, I decided to include a picture of some heart-shaped donuts that were at the same bakery:



The sleigh ride was neat, despite the near-to-below zero weather. It was on a learning farm –– a place where city kids can go to learn about farm animals. While we were there, we saw a little lamb sleeping on top of a sheep. It was something like what a sheep piggy-back-ride would look like.

We also got roast marshmallows over a bonfire that was set up near where the ride began. Let me tell you, it's easier to roast non-frozen marshmallows in the summer, but there was something satisfying about my winter smore.





If you look closely, you can see the city lights in the background of this one (click on it for a larger version):

You Say It's Your Birthday ...

... it's my Birthday, too, yeah ...




... needless to say, I probably won't be updating the rest of my vacation pictures today. But look for them and the ones from today's adventures in the coming days.

*photo by my mom, Victoria

Happy Valentine's Day

There's a privately-owned small town bakery in Farmington that made these cookies, as well as heart-shaped donuts. They said they make shamrock shaped donuts for St. Patrick's day, as well.

Joe and I got up early so we could have breakfast, then we're headed on a sleigh ride after work. Later, we're cooking a nice meal of shrimp, broccolini and pasta or rice at home, where it's warm. How are you spending your Valentine's day?