A Prairie Winter Wonderland

Before I get into all the other ‘January’ posting stuff, I just wanted to show you a few photos from our holiday.  I guess that you could say this is one of my hobbies, it’s something that I’m driven to do, just can’t stop doing: it’s taking photos through the windshield of a moving vehicle.  Seriously, I can’t help myself.  It’s a super-frustrating hobby, the windows are dirty, I have no zoom, and all the cool scenery is flashing past, and I usually see something fabulous then notice the camera is off and in 2 seconds it’s gone!!  But I always do it.  Over and Over again.  (this is starting to sound more like an addiction and less like a hobby).

I’ve decided to post these photos as a slideshow.  I was going through them and narrowed down the ones to post here on the blog, and when I was uploading them was surprised to notice that there were 45!!  Forty-five photos of scenery from our minivan window!!  (I’m feeling slightly insane as I type this).  And those are only the ‘bestest’ ones. (I shouldn’t have told you that, now you won’t want to see them all!  It only takes 2 minutes to watch them though, really!)

Just a few more comments, then on to the slideshow!!   These were taken on Christmas Eve morning, as we left Edmonton, Alberta and started on the 8 hour drive to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.  (We actually made it in seven and a half hours this time with only 2 potty breaks! ha!)  It was an amazingly beautiful drive as we watched the sun come up over the prairies.  I just love love love the prairies.  Maybe because I was born there, or maybe just the huge sense of openess and freedom.  You can see the whole sky at once!  And watching a sunrise is a very very rare event for me.  I also want to mention that Christmas Eve morning the temperature was -25 degrees Celsius, plus windchill made it 30 degrees below zero!  (that’s minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit).  It was a frosty morning.  We were well prepared with our emergency kit (candles, matches, radio, stuff like that) snow pants, sleeping bags and food.  My window was so frosted up that I scratched some hearts in it and just had to take a few photos (even my fingerprints crystallized)…. All of a sudden we could see a rainbow!!!  (and it wasn’t snowing or raining!)  It was such a gorgeous morning, watching the prairie winter wonderland flash by as we listened to glorious Christmas music.  I don’t even feel bad anymore about the crazy amount of photos I took….I’m happy to look at them and remember that special morning!

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Outside my Window…

It’s a snowy day outside my window…I guess I could say that I’ve been all frozen up and that’s why you haven’t heard from me for awhile…and maybe that’s partly true.  The beginning of winter can be a crazy time, but this year seemed to be a bit crazier than usual….snowise: early in November we had a BIG blanket of snow fall on us…and then it never really left.  Which is fine with me, I love looking out my window at the beautiful snow.  But other things were going on, too….I went in for a little surgery, our main computer/tv died a sad death, a few kids’ struggles at school, tons of work and homework for Henry, health stuff, and even some plain old winter blahs!!  So with all of that, somehow I just didn’t blog.  I would write posts in my head, but somehow they never got posted.

Now Christmas time is here and I keep making up blog posts in my head…so I thought I should try and get at least a few posted!!  I thought I’d start off with a few photos of what I see outside my window….I just can’t help taking photos out the window, of sunsets, snow and trees.  I try not to include uglyish things like roads and signs and cars parked everywhere, or the bus-stop.  I am so very happy that I can see trees!!!  The tree right in our front yard died a few years ago and we were all sad about it 😦 but there are still plenty that we can see. 🙂  Here are some of the shots I’ve been taking since the first big snowfall in early November.

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I love it when the ugly grey streets are covered in white (turns to beige) snow!  Yes, I know, I am not the main snow shoveller!!  This year our walkways were done for us for awhile….and then they stopped.  Today is a really white day…you can’t tell where the snow on the rooftops end and the sky begins…..

Well, thanks for being patient with me (and also now that I don’t have spell check anymore)…. I really do want to try harder and get some more posts done before Christmas!!  🙂

Summer in my front yard

The front yard of our house is nothing to write home about (as they say)…and we hardly even step out into it really….but I happened to be out in it today, even resting on a quilt in the grass.  Strangely enough, I had my camera in hand, so these are a few “nature shots” I captured today:
This next one has moving ant nature in it….hey, I just this minute noticed the spider!!! too cool…

Lovely dandelion leaves and another bug….

A cuter weed…

Oh look…the mother weed…..And here’s the real reason my camera was out, and why I was in the front yard on a quilt in the grass….this delightful bit of nature!

All of a sudden my photos are looking better than normal.  Usually I just point and shoot on automatic with no flash…but now…now….some tips that my friend April gave me finally stuck in my mind, so I’ve actually been shooting on a different setting! yay!  Her work is lovely and I really need to ask her for more tips, but I’m afraid that it takes me a looong time to digest them and get them to stick in my brain!!  See some of April Scott’s Photography here!