Dreaming of a Whiteout Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone, from the Princes. We were dreaming of a white Christmas this year, and got a whiteout!

It is hard to know exactly how much snow we got all night Christmas Eve and all day long Christmas day, since in some areas the ground is bare, and in others the drifts are over your head, but let's just say the neighborhood was completely snowed in. Here is Ayla looking out the back door, where the snow was packed in like concrete! (Look at the imprint of the door frame frozen in there!)

When the wind finally quit blowing, Christmas day was just about over and the hazy daylight was fading away into night. At that point, the whole neighborhood got busy digging ourselves out (the city crews seem to always get to us last). It was quite a scene!

I'm excited because I got a new camera for Christmas. It is a Nikon D40 digital SLR. I added the photo of Ashlynn above at its full original resolution; click on it and check out the fine detail it captures in her beautiful red hair, particularly right across her nose there. Cool! It is only 6 megapixels, but that's plenty for an amateur like me.

I also got a couple of photography lessons that came with the camera, so I'm excited to learn more about photography and take some better pictures. All the pictures on today's blog came from the new camera! I only took about 125 pictures yesterday (but at least they weren't all of the same thing, right Dad?)

Here's a picture of Ayla and her new Tinker Toys. She also got a great big new dinosaur named Spike, since she is such a fan of dinosaur toys. She won't go anywhere near Spike, though. He's too scary. Yes, that was another of Dad's wonderful Christmas present ideas. (I wonder what giant, roaring, burping, radio-controlled dinosaurs are going for on ebay.)

Here's Lori with her new road bike. She got really into biking last year, so I surprised her with this lean mean machine this year. The surprise lasted until about 11:00 Christmas Eve, when I was caught trying to sneak it into the house. Oh well. She also got a "trainer," which is a thing that attaches to your bike so you can ride it indoors during the winter.Nathan got this bass guitar and an amplifier to go with it. He would much rather play this than the piano, as the "cool factor" is much higher, of course. His uncle Kevan, star bass player for The Craving, has offered to give a few free lessons. I have this feeling Nathan is going to be getting headphones for his birthday next month, though. I played around with this photo a little last night and added some fun digital effects. (I spent like four hours on the shading for his upper lip.) We'll probably put it on all his band's t-shirts one day. One of his friends plays the bass, and another one got a new bass guitar, too. I hope we don't have to clean out a bay in the garage for them.

I'll post some more Christmas photos later (I have lots to choose from), but for now I've got to go to work.