2010 Winter

Christmas Holidays

Christmas was a wonderful season with Philip back from college, Kevin visiting for a week, an excursion to Baltimore for Lucas’s baptism, and Scott off from work for a week.

We had a great visit from Kevin, and played games regularly. Here, we're playing Sequence with “Revenge of the Cybermen” showing at the same time. Phil and Kevin's team trounced Kathy and Scott 5 games to 2.

In other games, Kevin won the 13-game set of Mexican Train and Phil became the Rail Baron. During the course of the year’s first Saturday evening, each of the four players achieved the coveted Greater Dalmuti hat at one point or another.

Prior to Kevin’s arrival, Kathy won a three-way game of Rail Baron. Scott and Phil were flummoxed as a result of using conventional rail-network-building strategy, while Kathy found that with just 3 players it worked to just save up the $100,000 and win.

Kevin hung out from time to time in the dining room with recreational reading on the internet. Phil read The Shadow of Kilamanjaro which he recommends highly.

Skiing

Since Kevin came north for the cold, he went skiing with Phil and Scott twice. The first day of skiing was at Waterville Valley, where the temperature began at 5°F and sank to 3° in the early afternoon. Wind added to the adventure. We enjoyed it a lot, spending just two hours on the trails.

So when the next storm came on Saturday, we went skiing again at Windblown, an exclusively Nordic X-C area. This time the temperature was in the 20s and it wasn't quite as windy, but it snowed lightly the whole day. We were among the first to arrive and the last to leave, going up and down the mountain twice.

Scott’s only fall of the day was an attempt to show off for the camera.

In January, Scott needed to get away for some recreation and exercise, and headed back to Windblown on a Saturday. The same occurred the next Saturday. It snowed a lot, and it rained, but the snow wasn't all washed away at Windblown. Eventually, there were six successive Saturdays of snow and skiing!

Feb. 27 it was snowing when we arrived.

Mar. 6 was Steve's first time on skis. His ice skating skills seemed to transfer nicely. By the end of the day he was enjoying the downhills of all the intermediate trails.


exploring a lean-to

Skiing on a frozen pond is a treat.

Nearly the highest water we’ve seen in the back yard, in 30 years.

And then it rained for another 24 hours, surpassing the highest we’ve ever seen.

Kathy braved the soggy ground for some daytime photos.

We could see across swollen Beaverdam Brook that some homeowners must have considered our house high and dry.

Still raining and flooding at the end of the day.

The sun came out the next day, bringing a new perspective on our back yard.