Winter arrives

Perhaps the title of the previous post was a little premature. Last week's polite preview of winter was replaced this weekend by the real thing. The official start of winter is today, December 21, but it got a head start on Friday, when it started snowing at 2:00pm. Two feet of snow and two days later, it still hasn't stopped! Getting home from work on Friday was an adventure, with the bus schedules all thrown off and Kate's car getting stuck in the snow twice after she came to pick me up.

By Saturday it was only lightly snowing, so we decided to take this opportunity, with many people either shopping or heading out of town, to try cross-country skiing at Dartmouth. Since I had never tried it before, I figured the fewer witnesses the better!

Today is our six month wedding anniversary, and we plan to celebrate with admisisons file reading and a nice dinner while feeling thankful that we don't need to venture back out in the snow.

Winter Wonderland

"Snow, snow, snow, snow. It won't be long till we be there with snow."

--Bing Crosby, "White Christmas"

The above lyrics are sung while the main characters from the movie "White Christmas" are on a train heading for Vermont. Living close to Vermont as we do, and with the season's first big snowfall coming this past week, we thought it would be nice to go see Vermont with snow. It turns out that it is very charming.

First, we stopped at Quechee Gorge (right)

A nearby Vermont town, Woodstock, had its annual holiday festival, known as Wassail Weekend. We made the drive on Sunday afternoon to attend an event known as the Messiah Sing. It was a performance of Handel's Messiah, with the audience serving as the Chorus. Obviously folks have been attending this event for years, since many were very familiar with the choral parts. Kate and I mostly listened,

but enjoyed being a part of an area holiday tradition. Before the Messiah sing, we had some playtime on the Woodstock "green," which is of course made up of snow and ice this time of year (left)

It was not a great weekend for many in New Hampshire. The storm that brought the snow also brought ice and many downed trees. Over 200,000 people in New Hampshire were without power even through Sunday. Kate helped out a Red Cross shelter on Friday evening and remained "on call" for the rest of the weekend. Our prayers are definitely with those struggling to stay warm.

Our New Hampshire Christmas

Hey everyone!

Christmas time is here, and Kate and I are getting into the holiday spirit. After returning to New England from our Thanksgiving trip to Texas, we enjoyed decorating our first Christmas Tree as a married couple. We're very pleased with the results:


Also, we attended the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony at Dartmouth this week. Fortunately it was not too cold, though it felt odd to us that it started at 5:15pm. That's what happens when it is dark by 4:30pm! The Dartmouth glee club, which happens to be under the direction of my boss's husband, provided Christmas carols, and I tried to capture a picture of the lighted tree with Dartmouth's signature Baker Tower in the background:

Kate and I hope you are enjoying the holiday season too!