Driving through a snowy Spearfish Canyon

Almost every year since we got married, I've created a photo calendar with photos from each month from the year before. It's a fun way to remember the previous year and pretty much the only "photo-booking" I do these days. For the past three years, when making our calendar February has completely stumped me. I literally have had only one or two photos. For the entire month. For three years running. That is just how dreary and yucky February in Idaho is ... this year we vowed to try to DO something photo-worthy this month. 

So when we had a somewhat decent weather day recently, we took a drive through the scenic Spearfish Canyon. This place was spectacular when we drove through it in Fall and I was curious how it would look in the snow. We were not disappointed. Around every curve there were beautiful mountains and a very chilly looking creek.

Coming through the town of Deadwood at the end of our drive.

Celebrating an early Valentine's Day

Jason has a work trip this week - his company's annual convention (which is planned every year over Valentine's Day) - so we celebrated Valentine's Day with the kids while he was still home.

I have never tried to make pancakes in any particular shape as I'm usually just hoping for getting them fully cooked without burning; but in the spirit of the holiday I decided to try heart-shaped. Whew, it wasn't always pretty, but with these helpers what could go wrong?  ;-)







































The kids even wanted to dress for the occasion for church on Sunday. Super cute :)

Feeling chilly

We've had rather brisk temperatures recently and woke up to this on Saturday morning. Brr!

Although it is certainly not my favorite, one bonus to the extreme cold is that it releases me from the feeling that I should get the kids out to do something. Instead we stay inside. Making forts, putting puzzles together, watching spectacular sunrises, reading books, baking, cleaning and anything else I can think of.

Luke did the sweetest thing for me. He had been coloring on some scratch paper and taped this one to our window, telling me "look, I drew summertime out the window for you mom..."

As cold as Saturday morning was, it was supposed to warm up to the teens and be sunny with very little wind; so we knew we needed to get out. We headed up to Buzzard's Roost for a short hike. It was a beautiful day and we had the place completely to ourselves :)

Wrapping up January

After the fervor of the the holiday season, I'll admit this month seemed to drag a bit ... it probably didn't help that we were all sick with various illnesses for about a week mid-month and then I didn't feel like I'd fully recovered for another full week. :-(

We did manage to have some fun in the midst of the chilly weather and sickness.

After our two weeks of frigid temperatures, we had a day early in the month that was above freezing and felt SO incredibly warm. We immediately went outside to play :)

One of the most fun things this month was getting to host a pen pal friend for an evening who I haven't seen since we met in 2010. Shan is a missionary in Japan who worked with Jason's aunt & uncle when they lived there. We got to meet her when we visited them while living in China. Shan is an inspiration to me and after finding out that she also like to write letters, we began writing to each other.  And now, nearly eight years later she is on home assignment in South Dakota! It was a blessing to see her and hear first person about her life as a missionary (and I'll admit .... it's always nice to be around another tall woman!).


























We attended the Black Hills Stock Show & Rodeo last weekend. It's the second largest annual event in the state (second only to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally) and it was a total ZOO. Might have been more fun without having to keep track of our two kiddos, but they had a good time.

A new friend introduced us to the FREE kids art room at the Dahl Art Center - complete with a dress-up section, thousands of legos and all kinds of art supplies for the kids to use. It was awesome!

We were also treated to gorgeous sunrises on a nearly daily basis. Love that!