Spring!

Tomorrow is the first official day of spring and look at what decided to arrive today. My first crocus. :)

I see purple!!

Typically, my crocus are the first buds to appear in my flower bed in the spring. I hadn't noticed their green leaves because I was following the progress of my tulips. But then this morning I realized I caught a speck of purple in the flower bed as I walked by to walk the girls to the bus stop. The first crocus bud!!! Yay, it's a sure sign spring is on it's way. That and the fact that I saw a sign on the golf course fence, "Driving Range Open."

The progress of spring

My front flower bed as of today...

the green shoots are getting taller!

:)

More Snow?!

Yes, because we kept getting snowflake after snowflake, I decided it is only fair if I deluge you with picture after picture of said snowfall.

Enjoy!

The second full snow day the girls spent almost entirely outside.

Because we live on a cul de sac, all the snow gets plowed up into a big pile in front of our house.

It makes a great kid mountain, and later snow fort complete with tunnel.

It was not too cold and super snowy--perfect for playing outside.

Not so great for sledding--the snow was too deep.

The front of our house complete with snow piles.

Winter wonderland, huh?

The "marshmallow" on the back deck.

Snow.

It snowed all day yesterday. I shoveled like three different times. In the morning I shoveled near 4inches, then several hours later I shoveled another 4 inches. A couple hours after that I shoveled again and it was maybe 2 inches. I didn't shovel again that night, but we watched as the snow didn't let up and wondered if school would be cancelled today.

Woke up to a message that school would be delayed by 2 hours. So, I fed us and geared up to shovel. 

The back deck today. Remember the picture I posted yesterday? There's a ton more snow now.

Erik comes home from going out early to plow out the store and he tells us about how folks were getting stuck driving around on the main roads still and there's no way my car is leaving the garage today. To shovel the snow in the driveway and street seems like an enourmous task.

The kids' play fort. 

Thankfully, as I'm shoveling and haven't gotten very far, my neighbor lets me know that school has now been cancelled. It's a snow day, hooray! 

The sidewalk I had to shovel. The snow was too deep to push, I had to actually lift shovels full of snow up and out.

The sidewalk right off the front porch. After I shoveled it was surrounded by snow walls.

Erik said the snowmobiling would be epic today. He was driving his snowmobile around on the street before his buddy came to pick him up. Anyone familiar with sleds will know that there has to be a bit of snow to be able to ride.

He was loving it.

The neighborhood behind us. Snow, snow, everywhere snow.

Shoveling the back deck. 

Walking the girls home from a friends' house, we passed this fire hydrant. That's a lot of snow on top of it. Perspective, Lindsay is 4'5" tall.

I'm tired of shoveling. I'm ready for spring. 

Excuse my absence...

Dear Blog Reader,

Please excuse my absence today from writing anything new. I've spent all my free time outside shoveling our driveway and sidewalk numerous times. It seems that Old Man Winter has decided to give us the snow we've been thus far missing this winter, all in one day.

Oh, look, it's time to shovel again. 

Sincerely,

Why Hello there Summer!

The first official day of summer, the longest day of the year and the day the sun finally came out!

Here in Montana, at least.

We've had cooler and wetter weather than normal, so to have sun and warmth was very welcome.

So welcome, in fact, that Kera insisted on getting out the wading pool.

We, of course, did.

We hope to have more of these days still to come!

Springing Spring?

You know how they say, "Spring has sprung?" 

Well, one look at my flower bed and you'd probably say something to that effect.

My crocuses are starting to show their pretty purple heads...

And my tulips are pushing through the brown earth, 

reaching green fingers towards the sky.
 

But, then when you look up from the flowerbed,

 at the snowy mountain peaks and angry clouds

You might doubt. 

It is spring, isn't it?

The brown hill has no snow, but then again, it's still pretty brown...

The snow is still settled in nicely on the tops, and more coming down...

But that is spring in Montana. 

Such a fickle thing!

Enough already! Uncle! I surrender!

As I type this, it is right around seven degrees (Fahrenheit) outside, with a possible windchill anywhere from -10 to -20. And it's been blowing snow off and on all day.

I know that I live in the mountains in Montana and it's still only February.

I know that it's actually technically winter until some way later month like April or something like that.

and

I know that we've been known to get snow even as late as July.

I know all this snow is good for us in the long run.

and

I know I "just" got back from somewhere warm and sunny so I have no room to complain, BUT

I am so stinkin' tired of winter.

It's been a doozy here this year and I've seriously had enough. I want to run & play outside. I want to retire my sweaters and sorrel boots and gloves. I want to see my flowerbed blooming and the green grass. I want to be able to send my children outside to play without spending forever getting them ready first. I want all the things that spring and summer bring--I've had enough of all this winter crud.

I.just.want.to.be.done.with.it.

Monday Randomness

Today is the day that I get things figured out for the week ahead of me. I finalize the menu plan, the grocery list(s), do the errands, and basically recover from the weekend and start a new week. It's actually one of my favorite days, as I don't usually plan anything extra, so it tends to be pretty productive. And with that intent of being productive, I don't want to spend a ton of time drafting a huge, thought-out blog post, so I leave you with randomness, which is where my brain is right now anyways...

• My shin hurts. My right one, specifically. I'm afraid I may have overdone it somewhere along the way of my 1/2 marathon training. My shins are quite temper mental--if I increase incline, distance, time, intensity, etc too quickly, they get whiny. So, I will be taking it easy on the running this week (translation: no running, just walking) which I hate to do. I mean its a good thing I still have a month, but then again, I only have a month! Please pray that my shin heals quickly, I will be.
• I made two new things yesterday: Rhubarb compote & rhubarb muffins. Both are yummy. Especially when you use the compote in the muffins, like Shauna does in her fabulous recipe here. Super yummy.
• My girls are done with school on Friday, but before that they have Fun Day today and then the youngest has  field trip tomorrow, both of which I'm helping with. I like helping with their school stuff, its one of the biggest perks of my "job". I hope they realize how lucky they are to have their Mamma at their school as much as I am!
• I started P90X today. I am borrowing the discs from my folks. I wanted something different to shake up my workouts a bit, and I love a challenge. I also love watching a workout video as opposed to trying to follow moves out of a book. I must be somewhat of a visual learner. Anyway, I'm not doing the classic program, but the lean one. It's got less of the upper body weight training and more cardio. Not that it is suppose to be any easier, I just don't need to spend three or four hours each week pumping up my arms. Today was a workout called core synergenics (or something like that) and even though it was tough, I actually enjoyed it. I'm going to just take a day at a time because I don't want to do too much and get injured (more) and not be able to run, so we'll see.
• We watched the movie, "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" this weekend. The girls and Erik liked it. I thought it was a bit weird. I like more of the traditional animation, I think.
• I don't remember how I found this blog, "This Blessed Life", originally, but I am really interested in the journey she's been documenting towards "clean" eating, especially after watching "Food Inc." She's blogging about two foods each month that she's been able to replace the chemical-laden store bought kind with a homemade, chemical-free kind. It's fascinating to me and I've already found several recipes I'd love to try. That's one of the biggest benefits I've seen from going gluten-free, as well, is the amounts of processed foods bought in my house has drastically decreased and I've started to make a whole lot more things from scratch. It makes me very grateful I have the time to cook things from scratch. (Thank you God for my awesome job!)
• Kind of along the same thread as clean eating, I want to ask you, how much do you know about what you put on your face or skin? A good friend, and my Mary Kay consultant, pointed this article from the Dr. Oz show out to me, all about the hidden dangers of beauty. I will be changing a few of my beauty products for sure after reading this. It's not just about what we put in our bodies, but also about what we put on it!

Okay, that's enough rambling. I'm off to help second graders play games, as long as the rain stops! Stop, rain, stop, if just for this afternoon!

Hello? Spring, where are you?

Spring in Montana is a fickle thing. As I type this there is snow blowing sideways out my window and the mountains that surround my little town are what we call, "socked in". It's good, I'm not complaining about the moisture, we need it after a fairly dry winter. It's just kind of hard to stomach in the middle of April, especially when so many people have already seen temperatures above seventy degrees. We have too, but it is gone and now we have this wintery stuff. At least the actual temperature isn't freezing, even if it is quite brisk!

Days like these make me really grateful for my husband's green thumb. Not that I have a black thumb, I was able to keep plants alive back when I was single, its just he does such a better job at it than I do, so he gets to be the one who waters the plants each week, diligently adding plant food at just the right times. His attentiveness to our houseplants produces sights like this:

Our hibiscus is going to town right now, blooming right and left, and I love it. It makes me think of Mexico, on all of our trips down there we've seen hibiscus bushes everywhere kind of how juniper bushes are everywhere here. It also gives me hope that, despite the weather I see right now, spring really is right around the corner.