Snow!

Winter time!  You've got to love it or go crazy.  Okay, most of the time I'm in the go crazy category.  I see nothing wrong with having it be 80 and sunny all of the time.  Winter does hold a certain beauty that when it's sunny, the wind isn't blowing and it's not too cold can be amazing.

 Ice sculptures in downtown Rockford.  There were some pretty incredible ones, but it was so crowded that getting pictures was nearly impossible.  I think there were about 30 total with some of them part of a mini golf course.

 Nina with the Hush Puppy dog, hat courtesy of Aunt Irene.

 Playing in the front yard before the blizzard, snow is maybe 8 inches deep.

 On the deck, eating snow.

Opening the garage door after the Ground Hog Day Dump.  Gotta love that name :)  About a foot to start, but it snowed another 3 or so inches that morning.  The drifts were 3-4 feet high in some spots.  It took Dennis about an hour to clear off our driveway.  He was out there for about 3 hours helping neighbors and trying to get some sort of path to drive on in the street.  It was a snow day for everyone.  Even the mall was closed, that's when you know it's bad.

Alek on the snow pile left by the snow plow on our neighbors' yard.  It is about 5 feet high and the boys have had a blast playing king of the mountain out there.

Walking on Lake Michigan.  This is by the pier in Grand Haven.  It was of course icy and hard to walk, but it was cool to walk out on the water.  It is a completely different place in the winter.

You can see the open water in the background.  It's frozen water by the beach and then huge frozen waves, then some more flat frozen ice before you get to the water.