Snow, Snow... Where ever I go!

So.... Abby and I are visiting family in Arizona for a couple of weeks. When we left Rochester, there was still snow on the ground, but quite a bit of it had melted due to several days of 40 degree weather. Arizona winter shouldn't be as bad as upstate NY, but Rochester had mild temperatures today along with blue skies....

This is what I saw when I looked out the window here this morning! Where are my boots? Oh yeah.... I left them in New York!

Bedtime Stories Are Not Just For Kids

Abby loves books! Reading books is probably one of the most critical steps of bedtime! Usually she crawls right up in my lap or Coley's lap to listen to a couple of stories with a blanket, but this particular night, she decided that several of her toys needed to listen to the book also. Abigail, Tigger, two pink bears, and gray elephant sat very still through the entire book. It's a good thing I had the book practially memorized because I could barely see the pages over all the toys!

A Child's Imagination

There is nothing quite like the imagination of a child. I love watching Abigail talk to her toys, and I smile as she tell me stories about her dolls, cars, and stuffed animals. Here are a couple of examples of Abigail's world:

Purple Dinosaur meets Tigger

I'm not sure the nature of this meeting, but it must be important since Abby took the time to set up the "Little Tikes" purple chairs (face to face) in the kitchen.

This is Mack Truck. (This was Abby's Christmas present from Mariette.) Abby LOVES her Mack Truck and takes his care very seriously. If you look closely, you can see that Abby has carefully placed one of the bowls from her kitchen (with plastic canned food) right at Mack's mouth. He was hungry and needed to eat!

My Christmas Surprise

One of my Christmas surprises from Coley was a date to go to dinner (at a restuarant of my choice) and a concert called "Extravaganza of Russian Music" at the Eastman Community Music School on January 7.

We went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Rochester- "Philip's European Cafe." I'm not usually a huge fan of sweet and sour sauce, but their chicken stir fry with sweet and sour sauce is delicious! They also have the most amazing desserts! Yummmm!

After dinner, we drove downtown to the concert. Student and faculty musicians from the school performed as well as an a capella men's choir called "Musica Spei." We listened to piano, violin, cello, flute, trumpet, and vocal music. It was wonderful. It was also fun to see the inside of the concert hall.

I must also say that Coley had previously made babysitting arrangements for Abigail. He definitely gets "two thumbs up" for this Christmas surprise. Thank you for a wonderful evening!

Winter Wonderland

December didn't bring much snow to Rochester, so Mother Nature wanted us to be sure to know it really IS winter now! Saturday morning, we put Abby in her snowsuit so she could join the fun while we dug ourselves out. Later that day, we started putting on our coats before leaving to run some errands. Abby (in a very sad voice) said, "I don't want to play in the snow!"

Yesterday when we returned home from church, the snow was so high you couldn't open the front door! It took a little while to move enough snow to get to the door. By the time we were done clearing the walk to the front door and the driveway, we already had another inch of snow.

This is what our deck looked like this morning. Needless to say, Sydney, our Miniature Dachshund, is not thrilled that she has to go outside to take care of her business. Coley has to dig her a path so she doesn't get lost in the snow!

Yes, that is our mailbox..... Hopefully by the time the mail is delivered this afternoon, I'll still be able to see it. So far, it hasn't stopped snowing.