Uncle Michael's Igloo

Uncle Michael came to Denver riding on an airplane

And then the snow came flying down and this is where he ended.

Uncle Michael thanks for comin', Uncle Michael stranded

Uncle Michael had some fun though this was unintended!

(sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle)

We did love having you, Michael, although we're sorry you didn't make it all the way to South Dakota to see your family.

The girls woke up last Friday morning to a snow day from school and Uncle Michael sleeping on the couch. When a foot and a half of snow is on the ground, what little girl wouldn't be asking to build a snow fort? I told them Uncle Michael was the expert. Which he was. Just check out this igloo! Digging out the inside:
Ruthie checking it out:

Josie crawling in:

Uncle Michael thought he was just making an igloo for some little girls to play in during the day. Little did he know that two certain 4 and 6 year olds would want to sleep in their igloo that night.

Yes, seriously, they did sleep in it. Josie made it until 3 in the morning and Anna made it all night. They had to have adult supervision of course, so Uncle Michael was recruited to sleep in it too. He tried to make a case for young 'uns wanting their mom and dad to sleep with them, but Anna and Josie really wanted their uncle. Aw shucks, who can resist that?!

No, I didn't let Ruthie sleep out there, but she sure is a cutie playing in the igloo:

It was pretty big, Mommy even came in to play for a while during the day!

The moral of this story is: don't get caught in Denver in a snowstorm unless you want to spend the night in an igloo. Or something like that.

Today Josie went outside to play in the snow and climbed up on top of the igloo. Pretty soon she was jumping up and down on top of it and yelling to me about how strong it was. The next thing I knew, she had disappeared. Not knowing if she was stuck somewhere between on top and inside, I ran outside and peaked in. A giggling Josie looked up at me and exclaimed "I made a chimney, Mom!"

More Silliness

I could do a post on silliness pretty much every day in this house.

I hope these give you a bit of a laugh:)

Josie putting tattoos all over Ruthie (pieces of wet paper):

Swimsuits in the snow?


At least Ruthie had boots on!

Some 'real' swimming in the bathtub:

This swimming would have cracked you up even more if you could have eavesdropped on more of their conversation.

Josie: "I'm doing it! My elbows aren't even touching the bottom! I'm really swimming!"

Anna: "Get out, it's my turn now! I'm 6 so I need to be first so I need to practice more. You're only 4 so it doesn't matter as much if you don't know how to swim yet, but I need to learn. That's not fair that you learned before me, Josie!"

Snow Fun

A snow fort was called for today, since we actually have heavy wet snow that packs well (dry Colorado usually has fluffy powder snow that crumbles apart, not good for making anything.)

Anna, packing in the foundation while Mama made more blocks:

Josie, hard at work making food for the fort. This is a cake she's packing into the sled:
Tah-dah! Finished for today at least, it was dinner time. Anna is insistent that the walls go higher tomorrow. We'll see.

Stepping through the hula-hoop:

Hula hoop fun for A and J. Don't you always pull out your hula hoop when it's snowy out?

"Moon Cheese!"

Hula hooping queen:

Snow angel time for Anna:

We even had to bring in some benches for the snow fort, some log rounds we had in their playhouse on the south side.

Anna wanted you to see her hula hooping:

And Josie wanted her turn as well. It's a little tricky in the snow, as you can see.

Barefoot Snow Girls

Anna and Josie, crazy girls, dancing barefoot in the snow. Not for very long, mind you!

Heavy Snow

Two days ago we were all running around barefoot, the girls were playing in the creek, laughing in the sun, 80 degrees.

Today, winter arrived.

We had to find all the coats and hats and mittens and scarves in a hurry from where I had tucked them for summer storage.
So many colorful leaves are still on the trees.
We had been enjoying the crispness of Fall, a bit of change every day, something new to discover as the earth was preparing for the change of the season.
The suddenness of this storm littered the ground with branches, huge limbs, cracked trunks of trees.
These little girls noticed and continued in their play, making use of overhanging branches to hide under and make a secret house. Don't worry, I didn't let them play underneath any trees today, but the supple, heavy laden branches of the bushes in the courtyard were home and hearth.

Josie is a nonstop blur. This pretty much captures her in her snow play:

The best part of my day was biking Anna to school as she lounged in the bike cart, chattering away about all the beauty she saw and heard around her. A fresh morning, a beautiful winter wonderland so incredibly different from the world a day before.

Snowshoeing

This was a first for Anna and Josie, snowshoeing! We rented snowshoes for them and hit the trail. They had a blast.Anna during our lunch break:

Cool Jo:

Silly Ruthie on Mama's back:

We had the sled with us for whoever might need a break, we had no idea how the girls would do. Ruthie was the only one who took a turn in it today, the other two just wanted to keep snowshoeing. Here we are trekking down the trail:

Ruthie along for the ride:

Me!

This next picture was actually the next day, when we headed out first thing in the morning to get one more snowshoeing expedition in before we had to return the girls' snowshoes. Our favorite thing about this trail was all the animal tracks we saw, rabbit, squirrel, coyote (sometimes chasing the other two), and some mystery tracks (Josie swears they were skunk). Winter in Rocky Mountain National Park means all the animals are hiding, hibernating, or have headed down to lower elevations, so it was fun to see evidence that a few of them were still around.

Josie wanted to show you a video of how she hopped on her snowshoes:

What wintertime expedition is complete without a little hot chocolate afterwards to warm you up? The girls loved the snowshoeing and are ready to buy their own snowshoes so we can head out more often. Watch out, Grandpa and Nona, they're already working on their birthday and Christmas lists! You've trained them well. We ended up snowshoeing three times and I think they never would have stopped.

Grand Lake

Since this is Mitch's Spring break we are taking a little vacation to Grand Lake, CO. We rented a cabin for a couple of nights and are enjoying lots of family time and winter play up here in the mountains.

The girls brought their beads and string and settled into the cabin immediately stringing beads on their hide-a-bed.
But it wasn't long before we headed out to play!

The huge snow pile in front of our door was the first attraction.

Queen of the Mountain!

We made some stairs up it so even Ruthie could climb it (that's Josie in the picture).

Here are two little videos of the fun we had with that pile of snow!




There's a bench swing in the little courtyard outside our door.
Beautiful and relaxing for this mama.


More places these climbing girls found to play outside our cabin:

Three sisters sticking their tongues out at you swinging on the bench swing:

Dinner inside the cabin.

With a full kitchen stocked with pots and pans and utensils we are able to cook our own food while we're here. This kitchen is bigger than our kitchen at home! All right, that's not saying much, but it still is nice for us. We are enjoying our stay.


Today we took a little hike out to Adam's Falls at the eastern edge of Grand Lake.

Anna, leading the way, and Josie being pulled by her Daddy'O in the sled:

Josie was hiking until she fell through the snow up to her waist. The trail itself was packed, but you had to stay on it. If you stepped off onto the side, down you went. We have snowshoes, but didn't wear them, since the trail was packed enough.


At the end of the trail, at the lookout by the falls, Josie is waving goodbye in the traditional Miller way:)

Goodbye for now! We'll post more pictures of our adventures at Grand Lake soon!

Family Bike Ride

I don't know if you all keep up on the weather in Colorado, but after a cold, blustery, snowy, temperatures in the teens sort of weekend, we were happy to see the sun and feel its warmth on our backs again. The snow's all melted except for in the shade now and we spun out for a family bike ride, our second in a week! Usually, Josie's in the bike seat and Anna and Ruthie hang out in the bike cart. But since I gave Anna a little treat on our last ride while she was in the bike cart, today Josie decided she wanted to ride in the bike cart so she could have a little treat, too. Mitch got to pull a few extra pounds around and I got to ride with a grinning, laughing Ruthie who fell asleep before we had gone very far, her second nap of the day.

The Clements do like to ride.

The girls like the change of scenery and watching the praire dogs, dogs, walkers, the creek, and other bikers go by. They will enjoy it for over an hour before they start to complain, and that's enough for Mitch and I to get a pretty good ride in and for our bodies to get a good workout if you factor in the extra weight we're each carrying on our bikes. Brings back lots of good memories of other fun bike rides.

Who Is This Little Girl...

...sitting in her swimsuit in the snow in February with a huge grin on her face?

Josie had to follow suite, although she is in her fancy dress and was playing in the mud.

The Contest Is On!

The "Biggest Snowman of the Year" Contest!

Can you build a snowman taller than ours? This guy stands 7 ft tall, and was made with only a 1/2 inch of snow on the ground, to boot. I have to say, I put that middle body part on all by myself. I had to use a board to make a ramp to roll it up, but I got it up there! I couldn't reach to get the head up, though, we had to have a little help from the neighbors. We're pretty proud, and unless he topples over he should be around for a while!

This really was all Anna's fault. When she went outside to play in the falling snow today she got so excited when she discovered that the snow would pack and immediately wanted to make a snowman (as you will recall, our snow is almost always so dry you can't even pack it into a snowball to throw at your Dad). So I started rolling a little ball and then handed it over to her. She didn't stop!
She said "It's like the Lorax, Mommy! It keeps biggering and biggering and biggering!" (The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss) Even when her ball got bigger than she is she didn't want any help.
So Josie and I had to get to work on more body parts.

The challenge has been set.
All entries must be photo documented and can be sent to me at aguakati@hotmail.com