Visible Light

Coyote

Megan takes Nature classes once a month at one of our local Parks. They have many animals there but the two that fascinate me each time are the coyote's. These two

Which is probably how I stumbled onto the Daily Coyote Blog which is a look at the life of a woman who is raising a coyote after its parents were killed. The pictures are beautiful, and the stories are entertaining. - Give it a read if you have some free time.

Let it snow...

Saturday we decided we'd head up in the mountains and give Megan a chance to play in snow. The drive up was longer than necessary as I took a wrong turn at the exit and we did a 30 minute loop back to the freeway before heading back to the exit and going the right way. At about 4000 feet we found snow, but we kept driving. I'd found Leland Snow Play Park on Google and so we headed up to 6000 feet passing lots of areas of great snow and lots of people playing. But it was our first trip to play in the snow so we kept going up to the Play Park. It was a bit pricey. Megan enjoyed Tubing down the hill several times - the first time she actually crashed and both Jack and I worried that that would be it, but she came out of the snow all giggles and smiles and couldn't wait to climb up and do it again. We got some pics and video before the battery died on the camera. We'll try to share soon.

On the way down we stopped at a wood fired pizza place we saw on the way up, but they were closed, so we headed next door and had a decent Mexican lunch.

I think what I'll do is go buy some snow gear at the end of the season - you know sleds and what not - and then next year we'll stop at about 5000 feet and enjoy the park land for free.

So now 4 days later the snow level has fallen to ... 1300 feet - the hills around us are dusted! but you can't sled in dust.

Photo Finish

Our city has a once yearly photo contest, started 3 years ago. Each year i've though - I should enter. I take pretty good pictures. This year I finally did. I entered the following photo from a day at the beach:

And placed 4th winning myself a ream of photo printer paper. I'm already planning on entering next year. For some reason I only thought to enter one but most winners where in several categories. Jack got an honorable mention for his entry. We attended the awards reception Friday night at our local favorite coffee joint.

Division and Unity

For the first time in our 15 year marriage Jack and I are rooting for different teams. I'm absolutely thrilled that Hillary won NH and plan on voting for her in the primary. To think of a woman president in my life time - well I just never thought it would happen. But now we have a smart capable strong woman who has a real chance at winning.

The truth is I like Obama too. He'll get my vote if he wins the nomination. I'm also excited at the prospect of the first African American to be president. In truth I'm torn but Hillary just edges out Obama, so I can see Bill as First Man. I for one will be very glad to have Bill back in the White House.

Not that anyone cares who I'm going to vote for - I'm in a liberal state which will goto who ever is on the democratic ticket. I'm also bad luck for any candidate I vote for in my first election I voted for Bush Senior (my republican days - I'm so ashamed!) , Then though college was turning me liberal I still couldn't vote for Clinton - so I voted for Perot- yes I was one of those. Then Gore and we know how that turned out, and finally Kerry - so I can't seem to vote for a winner. I'm tempted to vote for the republican - just to guarantee his failure.

Come to think of it Jack was a Clinton Fan back in 1994 when I voted for Perot so this isn't the only time we've disagreed.

Mamasita Donde esta Santa Claus?

Megan has been singing this refrain repeatedly since her class performed it at the party before break. Funny thing is we lost our Santa so I too was wondering where oh where is St Nick?

You see we had the absolute best Mall Santa, from 2002 when Megan was 2 months old to 2005. He apparently was here much longer because local people with older kids would see my pics with Megan and him and say he was the same one their kids had gone to. You may remember ...

And then last year we went to the mall excited to see him - The real one I'm sure and we were faced with a new one - see this years pick - adequate but not the real one!

I thought maybe he'd kicked the bucket, or retired or anything...

SO today I'm standing in the line at the grocery store - flipping through the a trashy magazine and who do I find!...

Chris - if you get this plea - come back to us! Better yet - HOLLYWOOD - give us our Santa Back!

Actually i'm just going to have to take Megan down next year to To visit him at the LA mall

And my vote goes to...

94% Dennis Kucinich
91% Mike Gravel
83% Chris Dodd
81% Joe Biden
80% Barack Obama
79% John Edwards
77% Hillary Clinton
68% Bill Richardson
32% Rudy Giuliani
28% Ron Paul
20% John McCain
14% Mitt Romney
13% Mike Huckabee
12% Tom Tancredo
5% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Mind games

Its raining and storming so hard that neither dog will go out. Oso has stuck his head out the dog door several times and by the amount of frantic pacing I was beginning to suspect the poor guy needed to go bad. So ... I opened the front door and told them they could go out- they both ran out barking and right over to their favorite bushes. Both emptied their tanks and came running back inside. Now if I'd opened the back door (which I did several times) I would have gotten that look - that look that says my human is crazy if she thinks I'm going to go pee in the rain!