Remember Summer?

I should be taking down the Christmas tree. Yes, seriously. We've swung past Valentine's Day and are on our way to St. Patty's, but our tree still stands in the opening between the living room and the dining room. I was going to work on it today, but got enmeshed in the project of moving one step-daughter's clothes out of a dresser she won't be using any more, and moving in clothes for T that are still too big for him, thus clearing out our own bedroom a bit. The clothes were piled so high they were stacked rather precariously and kept falling over onto the floor. So now they are out of my room, and stored for next fall. And at this late hour, why bother trying to take down the tree? I won't finish it before it's time to make dinner and then it's all downhill from there.

So instead I sit in front of my computer wondering where my Huntington Beach photos got to -- will have to give that old Compaq another peek -- and poking around on my blog.

To date, we've had a puny winter, which I needed after the last two years, except I'd really like to ski a bit more. Than once. Which we had to drive to mid-New Hampshire to do. Never satisfied, I am. OK, somewhere more than 40 inches, but less than 179 would be peachy. At any rate, I'm not feeling nearly so wistful about summer as I was last year at this time. I've only had to brush the car off three times to date. We've broken out the snowblower twice and T shoveled once. The other times it's snowed, we've just waited for it to melt. Which we're doing today.

At any rate, I still thought I'd share this little classic summertime photo from our "Waiting for T" trip to Lake Placid. There's a half-mile hike into a gem of a pond that we managed to turn into a 1.6 mile hike after missing a crucial turn-off. The pond is cool, crystal clear, and surrounded by nothing but trees, rocks, and mountains. No motor boats, no summer homes, and almost no people. One of the rocks has a sheer-faced 15-foot drop down to the water, which is pretty much the whole point of hiking in to this pond. It is the jumping rock, for the daredevils among us. Which I am not, so that turns me into the official photographer. This is a photo of S and his niece doing a synchronized jump. It took them a few times, but they finally nailed it.

So happy rest of winter to all, while we look forward to this year's summertime fun!