Enjoying the Snow

Well, we've been wanting good snow the last few winters, and clearly we got it! Our first winter in NY has definitely made up for the past two years of disappointing snowfall in MA. Since we have more than a foot of powdery snow, we were so ready to take out our skis last weekend.

It was still snowing on Saturday morning,

so we went out and skied near some ponds close to home.

On Sunday, since the weather was nice,

we went skiing at Mendon Ponds Park.

There were lots of people out skiing and sledding and snowshoeing.

Since Emma doesn't come skiing with us,

we took her back to Mendon Ponds to hike on New Year's Day.

What a strange dog. She likes to sniff and stick her head under the snow.

And just for reference - 

This was the pile of snow outside our house on New Year's Eve.

 We had a low-key New Year's.

We had ribs on Christmas Day (one of our new traditions), so we decided to start another rib tradition for New Year's Day.

Only problem with this plan? We had to shovel our way to the grill!

Our ribs and Brussels Sprouts and Kale salad with bacon.
A totally primal way to start 2013!

Having all this snow on the ground was a great start to the New Year and thanks to one of my Christmas presents, I have even more awesome food projects to work on!

It Snowed!

We have snow! Lots and lots of snow! Thanks to winter storm Euclid (Since when do they name them, anyways?), we have about 17 inches of snow on the ground right now. We left early on Christmas night so that we had plenty of time to pick up groceries and get settled before the storm hit on Wednesday afternoon/evening. The majority of the snow fell on Wednesday night, so Amit saw it before he went into work on Thursday morning.

Amit thinks that Emma gets too cold when she's outside,

so we bought her a jacket.
Wednesday's Snow

Thursday's Snow

She likes the jacket, but wasn't a fan of the deep snow.

Trying to escape the snow.

The mountain of snow from plowing.

From time to time, she would sink into the snow.
She hated that part.

When Amit came home from work, we shoveled the driveway again.
And he climbed the mountain.

The best part of her jacket is that it is reflective!

Emma also tried to figure out the snow from the inside.

She also started to lean over the snowbanks to sniff things.

Crazy dog.

Maybe there's something down there?

Time to go home!

What do we do when there's over a foot and a half of snow on the ground? Well, it's the perfect excuse to clean the house, try out some new Christmas presents, and eat some guacamole. Oh yeah, and we get to use our SKIS! We've used them twice already and it isn't even January yet. It's looking like New York will be a great state to live in, even in the winter!

Our Cousin Adoption Ceremony

The real highlight of this year's Christmas Eve party was the Cousin Adoption Ceremony that we decided to hold in the basement. Even though we aren't cousins by blood, we've all gotten to be close and we think of each other as family. True to our crazy selves, we decided that at some point we needed to have an official ceremony so that we could legitimately call one another cousins. After discussing many crazy and intricate aspects of the ceremony, we stuck with our bags of dirt and goblet. Unfortunately, some of the "going-to-be adopted" cousins couldn't be there, so we're planning the planting portion (and possibly other crazy additions) of the ceremony during warmer weather.

Bags of dirt ready to be poured into our vase.

We gathered around our dirt,

then someone started singing?

Krissy was the official master of ceremonies.

Mostly due to her love of Harry Potter and ability to sound all "churchy".
She asked us a ton of questions. She's hilarious!

There was conveniently a candle on the counter that we proceeded to light so we could dim the lights.

It is very difficult to take pictures while laughing with very little light.

Each family added their dirt to the vase.

Krissy then "blessed" each of us on the top of the head, with the fly swatter,

and we all drank from the goblet.

We added the leftover contents of the goblet to the dirt.

COUSINS!!!!!

(I hope Gina got a better photo of us! It was supposed to be adult-free, but she snuck down with her camera while we were setting the timer.)

This was seriously the best ceremony that I have ever been a part of! I can't even really remember everything that Krissy said, but it was great! Even though everyone else will probably think we're crazy, the ceremony was awesome and now we can officially say we're cousins!

Let's Party like its Christmas Eve

I love, love, LOVE celebrating Christmas. The decorations, the music, the snow (some years), singing Christmas carols at church, and of course, spending time with family and friends. We have lots of Christmas traditions and want to start new ones, but one of the craziest and most fun is always the big Christmas Eve party at Bruce and Tricia's. Thankfully, the camera is always out and I can capture just some of those crazy memories.

Cousin Photo!

(This year it is OFFICIAL!)

Random photos...

Our tenth Christmas together!

Memaw needed some Eli time!

With the volleyball celebrity, Lauren!

What is this?

Love it!

This is what happens when Nate takes the camera.

Puppy kisses!

At some point, Nate stole Eli.

And would NOT give him up!

Then, the (Second Annual) Dance Party began!

 

Keeping with tradition, Bruce gave his usual Christmas Eve gifts. We didn't think he could top last year's beautiful Christmas frame. But he did. 

Before this Christmas, it was just a home.

Now, it's a Love Shack!

Best gift ever!

It was another fantastic Christmas Eve... a fantastic Christmas altogether! There's nothing quite like an awesome party to celebrate family and Christmas!