February 13, 2013

Round two of shoveling the front walks, after the avalanche fell.  :)  

One of the back decks, which was still covered in snow from Nemo, plus one avalanche, and another one on the way.  :)

February 12, 2013

The temperatures were above freezing this week, so the snow on the metal roof started sliding down...inches at a time...so we had these overhangs most of the week till they collapsed in an avalanche.

February 10, 2013

So today we started shoveling our way out of the house.  

The windows are in Jed's room on the second floor, but there's a roof that's holding up all that snow in front of them.

February 9, 2013

We got 20" of snow from Captain Nemo.  So awesome!!

January 30, 2013

I took a card making class recently and this was by far my favorite of the bunch...the snowflakes were punched onto the edge of the card, and I used the gold embossed paper on the front and on the inside - if I was going to send this out, I would write on the back of the snowflake side.  The coolest part is the tag...it looks like metal, but it was made by heating several layers of metallic embossing powder and then stamping into the last layer while it's still hot.  When I trimmed it down to size, little flecks popped off all along the edges, which disappointed me at first until I realized that it actually looked like rust...can't beat a rusty tag on a card!  :)

January 29, 2013

Jed made a Lego creation that he wanted to send into to the Lego Club publication, so I spent a lot of time trying to get a decent picture of the two of them.  :) 

This banner was made by an artist friend of ours in New Zealand...each individual cloth tag has a letter sewn onto it, along with lots of little embellishments and bells in between each...so cute!!

January 28, 2013

Another fun science experiment...this time we pickled an egg in a jar of vinegar to see how it's possible for nutrients to pass through the villi in the small intestine to the blood stream.

The vinegar dissolved the hard shell and molecules from the vinegar passed through the soft membrane, swelling the egg to almost twice its size. You can see the egg yolk clearly through the membrane.

Jed is holding the soft membrane with the knife, and you can see the extra liquid absorbed by the egg in the bowl.

January 26, 2013

The moon was so stunning this evening, but it was so cold out my hands were shaking too hard to hold the camera steady, and this was the best I could capture of the beauty.

January 24, 2013

Stick a fork in me, I'm done...with Project 365, anyway.  Maybe there will be a time in my life when I'm able to take on another project, but this obviously isn't the time.  In the meantime, we've been doing lots of shoveling and sledding and science experiments.  The one above involved using iodine to discover which foods had starch in them.  The iodine turns black in the presence of starch - pretty cool!

Day 12 Project 365

We tested Jed's peripheral vision today for science.

It's excellent.

He can see the camera before the camera can even see him.

:)

Day 11 Project 365

We braved the frigid temperatures yesterday to take our first walk on the ice this winter.

 A wooded trail leading to our neighbors to the west.

 We headed east, in search of a beaver lodge.

Jed found this duck-shaped ice sculpture.

Cool, but not a beaver.

 Tracy and Jed spot evidence of beaver activity.

 Evidence!

 The marshy area where the cut-down trees are.

Cool, but no beaver lodge.

  Tracking two wild and dangerous animals through the snow.

 We give up on the beaver search when Tracy breaks through the ice in the marshy area in his hiking boots.

Refuses to buy snow boots when "hiking boots are just as good."  

I remind him that sometimes they're not.  :)

Tracy goes in to warm up and Jed heads out to our luge track (aka our driveway) to reinforce the walls.

 I play with the camera while Jed is working.

This is work too, right?

 

I love changing the focus from background to foreground.

Probably too gimmicky, but I don't care.  :)

Day 10 Project 365

 

Sledding's great fun but getting back up the hill is killer! 

Day 9 Project 365

We awoke to a pretty little snow and it was too hard to pick just one picture of it for today's post! 

Have I told you lately that I love Maine?  :)

Day 8 Project 365

This has to be the best tree we've ever had.  Not only is it perfectly shaped, it's only just now starting to lose a needle or two.  I think this one will make it to the end of January, which is always my goal every year but usually not met.  I'm actually halfway contemplating asking the grower if he would let us buy another tree.  :)

Day 7 Project 365

The sunrise this morning, as seen from the window beside my desk.  Mom and Dad, look what you missed by not getting up early!  :)

Well, it didn't take long for me to get behind on this project, did it?  I think it's a new record, even for me.  :)  I'm revamping my strategy:  I've decided to continue on in this endeavor until I've completed 365 days, no matter how many actual calendar days it takes me.  Que empiece el juego!

Day 6 Project 365

Another thing we started this week is Jed's cooking classes.  I'm grooming him to take over this household chore.  The best chefs are men, right?  :)

Day 5 Project 365

It was back to school for us this week, and we started it with a bang.  I bowed out of all outside activities for the month of January, to give us a chance to focus on Jed's schoolwork.  This has given us time to break out the Rosetta Stone and start learning Spanish.  Amigos, nos encanta!

Day 4 Project 365

Mom and Dad took the train this year when they visited us for Christmas.  We took them to the train station in Boston on Saturday for their ride home to Virginia.  It's always hard to say good-bye to them, but it was far easier to put them on a train than to see them pull out of our driveway knowing they had two days' worth of driving ahead of them.

Day 3 Project 365

Dad bought an old Erector set off ebay year before last and brought it up for Jed last Christmas.  I'm afraid Erector sets are not my thing, and it sat waiting for Dad to come back and help.  We got it out this Christmas and he and Jed built this bridge crane.  You wouldn't believe how many hours went into this creation!  And I'd be hard pressed to tell which one enjoyed it more.  :)

Day 2 Project 365

Two of my favorite ornaments, made by my two favorite boys, exactly 20 years apart.

Day 1 Project 365

I can see from how things have changed at Blogger that it's been a while since I last posted.  

I had a hard time getting settled after this last move, and then school started and things have been a whirlwind ever since.

I'm going to try the Project 365 again, because I love the idea, even if I have yet to complete an entire cycle.  So without further ado, I give you the fallout from our annual New Year's Day parade.