Our updates for all of you

VERY COLD, even for us! After restocking the fire wood and since I was still all bundled up, I took took these photos. All taken around noon, the tempreture had "warmed" to 5 above zero. At 7 am it was 5 BELOW zero. Top photo is of the cold and clear day with the smoke of the living room wood stove. The second two photos show the still loaded with snow trees. Since it snowed the over a foot of snow a couple of days ago, it got way too cold for any snow to melt so the trees stay loaded, at least for a few more days . I think it makes them the most picturesque though! As for today, too cold to do much outside so we're spending the day with indoor projects and couch 'potatoing' catching up with last few months worth of programs on the DVR. Tomorrow is 2011! So early happy New Years to all who read this!

And it is snowing A LOT! Like over a foot in less than 18 hours. After work I had to fine tune the plowing our neighbor had done during the day while we were at work. It is light fluffy snow so it plows pretty easy. The quad actually does a better job than our neighbor but our neighbor thinks he's 'helping'. The forecast is for the snow to stop overnight then a "bitter" cold is supposed to come in during the night tonight and hang around till mid next week. The prediction is for low teens tonight and tomorrow then below zero by tomorrow night and for a few nights. More later! - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Taken on December 22nd, the top photo shows an unusually busy Main Street with people out and still shopping or getting those last minute gifts. Normally downtown is dead and vacant after the sun goes down, but not this night! You can see the town Holiday lights and the town Christmas tree at the far end of the street. The next photo taken the same night is of the very large American Flag the town flies at the veterans park next to the Library. It was a very cold breezy night! The bottom photo was a long exposure of our place with the few Christmas lights Stacy put out on the porch. It is still snowy and although it was even sunny for a while on Christmas Day, the 26th it snowed much of the day.

During the cold snap the Kootenai River would 'steam' from the temperature difference between the water and the air. In addition to the overall look of the clouds of fog right there at the river, the trees in the area of downtown became flocked with ice crystals which can be seen a bit in the top photo of the train crossing Riverside Road and across the railroad bridge. The power lines also become covered with the ice. Not so fun when it gets like this is how the roads and sidewalks also become covered with a sheet of ice crystals as the steam rises and then almost instantly cools and falls back as ice crystals which look like it's raining light glitter or diamond dust. You can't see that in these photos but it was happening the entire time I was out and taking these photos as well as others. With the sun out the blacktop would melt the ice layer. In the shade or on cloudy days it is just a very slick layer of white ice! The above also shows more steam and the area of

Walk out to the street, look towards the West and see this view. Beautiful or what!!! Especially in the Winter. Next photo is on the property and I thought it was interesting how the one tree in the group got snow all the way down the trunk it while the others didn't given all the trees around that one. Last photo was taken in early December. After the sudden heavy snow and ice of November, a record of cold (almost a week of below zero at night!) and snowfall (almost 3 feet at our house alone!) for the month in this area, the temps had warmed up to the 40's causing a fast melt of the snow pack. Ultimately all the over two feet of snow came off the roof but at the point of the last photo, the house had teeth as the snow curled over from the roof. The ice sickles got almost totally horizontal before I thought it best to keep from somebody getting clobbered by a large hunk of the roof snow/ice falling on them and I knocked it down.

So I found an "app for that" to use my iPad with our blog. I'd also found a nice application for sending many of this years Christmas cards out on Christmas Eve, gotta love the instant of email! Overall a really good Christmas, this one of 2010. I haven't had a lot of extra time to update the blog the last few weeks. It is nice to use the iPad at home and not have to get the laptop or work on the desktop at home so this app will help, even with the on sale price of $2.99. Stacy's father had gotten all three of us iPads when they came out last April. I don't think I'd call it "magical" as Steve Jobs did at the introduction, but it IS a very, very good device! I agree with the idea that the iPad is a media consumption device more than a creation device, but whatever you'd find you can do with yours, if you have one or when you can get one, it works very well and we really love ours! With just a couple of programs, one even free, you can get an

Heading South on I-15 in Utah. I'd kind of missed these 100 mile views as I saw them again while driving through this and our old high desert areas of California. It was still cool here but I got to our old area as I went through San Bernardino at the height of a heatwave with temps in the 90's! All the traffic and congestion of being back in that area for the first time in over 3 years made me glad it was just a visit! I only wished I hadn't been on such a tight time schedule and had a day free to visit with people I hadn't seen in person in almost 5 years! I was so surprised to see Primm (or Stateline Nevada) so deserted! This photo of Whiskey Pete's all but empty, it used to never be this empty, any day of the week! The Hotel is closed except for weekends anymore, only open for gambling and the McDonald's inside was the only 'restaurant' open! I'd gone there first to get a room on the way down to San Diego. I Guess most people just drive the 40