Week 22

Here is my 22nd week. 30 more to go!

#148: Knitted Hat: Another knitting project complete. Although I was making this to go with the little baby sweater I had made a few months before, but this hat ended up being much to LARGE. Isn't that just great, a too small sweater with a too large hat. Maybe someday I'll get these sizing issues corrected.

#149: Harpo's Cow: I wasn't feeling too well this day, so as soon as I got home I picked up my camera, shot the first unique thing I could find in my house and then rested on the couch for the rest of the night. During post processing I decided to have a little fun with this otherwise 'boring' photo and use a tutorial that was recently on 'I Heart Faces' blog. Click for the Tutorial.

#150: Expired: Tuesday evening we ran to the grocery store to pick up a few items. There is a grocery story right by hour house, it's not a huge grocery store and we really only go there to get 'last minute' items. We got some brownie mix and ice cream for dessert. As Kyle was opening the brownie mix he noticed the 'better if used by date' was November 27, 2009!!!!! If it wasn't for the fact that we were BOTH craving brownies and were getting ready to cook them that instant I might have taken them back to the store... but we dealt with it, it's brownie mix anyway, what can really go wrong with it? And it doesn't really surprise us coming from the store we went to, we'll just have to remember to check the dates BEFORE leaving the store next time, lol.

#151: Squirrel Chase: On the way home from taking Harpo on a walk to the dog park, I spotted these three squirrels chasing each other in the tree. It was pretty fun to watch and good timing to get some pictures.

#152: Harpo: When I can't think of anything else to take a photo of for the day, Harpo is always by my side ready to pose :-)

#153: Workin' at the Car Wash: With winter comes a slushy, chemical covered, constantly dirty jeep. Luckily this day it warmed up above twenty degrees which means it's time to get a car wash! I only had to wait in line behind six other cars at this time. Car wash lines are always bad when it starts to warm up.

#154: Kyle's hobby: Kyle collects coins! Here he is looking at the latest coin he received in the mail, it's an 'Indian Head Quarter Eagle'.

Thanks for reading!

Winter Park

I took Harpo for a walk yesterday.

The night before he was sleeping on my belly while laying in bed. Kyle and I were talking and I mentioned the idea of taking Harpo for a walk the next day, as soon as the word WALK came out of my mouth, Harpo's head raised from a dead sleep and he was now WIDE awake. At this point I knew he was long over due for a walk and since the weather has been oddly warm this week, there was no better time to take him out.

On our way to the dog park, the side walk felt like we were walking on a sandy beach.

This mental image was very helpful on the walk home when my ears were frozen and Harpo was kicking his feet up from being so cold. While at the dog park, there was one other dog there, an 11 month old English Bull Dog, full of puppy energy... well bulldog puppy energy. This dog was SOO cute!

He would pounce for about 3 yards before giving up and just going back to a waddle. He really wanted to play with Harpo and kept chasing Harpo around, but Harpo was not a fan of this. Just the past few months we have noticed that Harpo has transitioned from the being the 'annoying puppy' to the 'annoyed dog'. He no longer likes to coarse other dogs to play with him, but he minds his own business and gets annoyed when little puppy dogs approach him. He is such a stinker!

On our brisk walk home, excited to get back inside. I did see some squirrels playing around a tree, so I had to stop and get a few shots.

Squirrels are fun!

Warm Wishes!

Week 21 out of 52

Here is my 21st week of my Project 365: Year Twenty Seven!!!

#141: Rose: This rose was part of the flower arrangement my mom sent us for Christmas. I was just playing around with it and added texture in post processing. Some days call for a little photography fun.

#142: Chichen Itza & Camel: We got this little Chichen Itza statue while on our honeymoon last April. Kyle's mom sent him the little camel that he used to play with as a child. This day they became my photo subject as I played with my new telephoto lens.

#143: Frozen Lake: While driving around the lake looking for beautiful shots, I happened upon this pretty branch glistening in the sun. I also got to see lots of ice fishermen out on the ice on a beautiful, sunny Tuesday afternoon.

#144: New Bag: With some of my Christmas mulah I got a new camera bag. I have a small bag I always use, but this one will be nice to keep ALL my stuff in. I got it custom made on Esty.com, I <3 etsy!

#145: Icicles: I didn't have to go very far to get this shot of the day, it was in the bushes of my neighbors, between her house and ours. I first saw it when I was shoveling our sidewalk and after going inside and warming up a bit I grabbed my camera and came back outside to shoot a few shots of our winter wonderland we call home.

#146: House Slippers: Something we've gotten in the habit of since living in Minnesota is taking our shoes off when we enter the house. We do this year round, but especially in the winter cuz our shoes/boots are covered in snow and slosh. I recently got new boots and was wearing them around the house before I took them outside for the first time, during this 'new boot' stage I had the thought of getting some house slippers. I ran this idea by Kyle and he agreed it'd be nice. We have also noticed a few of our friends bringing their own house slippers when they have come over. So now we have house slippers!!!! They are so comfy!

#147: Frozen Lake 2: Our second time out for cross-country skiing. It was a beautiful 5 degree day. We went to French Regional Park. Unfortunately the trails were pretty poor because they were unable to groom them throughout the week due to the cold, but we still had a good time and skied with a couple of friends.

Thanks for reading!

XC Skiing Trip Two; French Regional Park

Today we went for another Cross Country Ski Adventure!!! This time we went to French Regional Park, about 15 minutes north of us.

(Kyle hates how this picture turned out because he was squinting from the sun, I tried to replace his face with another picture - but it just looked hideous, I need a little more practice with Photoshop before I can pull that off, lol.)

Again it was super fun! Some friends of ours, Sarah and Jeremy, met us there. Turns out Jeremy has a hidden talent, he was very good at going down the hills and was our inspiration for the first half of the trails.

We first went up to the lesson loop, which ended up being very disappointing. The loop we learned at the other park was a good mixture of flattness, up hills, and a down hill. This one was just flat all the way around.

Another thing about today that was different than last week was the the trails were not groomed very well. The people in the lodge had said that since it had been so cold they weren't able to get out and groom them as well this past week. Also I think since it is so cold the snow is more icy causing the trails to be harder to make. So it was a learning lesson, but now we know we CAN ski without trails, I personally just prefer them when possible. We started off with the Lagoon Trail which was a 'More Easy'/Green Circle trail. It was pretty easy and pretty scenery.

We ended up doing a good hunk of the trails as this park, the only thing we didn't do is the pretty steep area and the black diamond trail. But I did venture out to accomplish a blue square trail! It was such a beautiful day out, granted it was in the single digits, at least those single digits were positive.

And us girls had hand warmer to help keep our fingers warm. Here Sarah is getting a hand warmer from Jeremy to put in her glove. I kept one in my right glove because the only time my fingers would get cold is when I would take my right hand out of my mitten to take pictures (I still had the under layer glove on at all times).

This was the hill we avoided. This was actually the up part, but we thought it'd be fun to capture a shot of Kyle 'coming down' it.

It was called Challenge Hill and the up part looked like a huge challenge, I don't even want to know what the down hill side looks like.

I did remember to wear my heart rate monitor this time, and luckily remembered to turn it on about 20 minutes into it. But in the end I ended up burning 877 calories in the two hours I had it on. Not to bad for a fun, Saturday activity!!! I just LOVE cross-country skiing, it's so beautiful out, it makes the cold weather not feel as bad, and we're not just wasting the day away indoors!!!

Warm Wishes!

What's that you say?

Every time I turn around it seems like someone is complaining about the weather.

Something I have learned from living in Minnesota: the weather doesn't care if you complain.

I happen to love winter time, it's beautiful!!

And I'm very thankful that our neighbor didn't clean out her gutters, otherwise I wouldn't have beautiful icicles to look at!

Oh and another thing I learned while living in Minnesota...

Christmas lights become 'Winter lights' then 'Valentines Day lights'. But after getting the electricity bill last week, ours will only be enjoyed during the day as house decoration until April when it gets above freezing and we can finally take them down.

Warm Wishes!