These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Winter this year started late and went a little longer that I think it was technically allowed. No one ever called me to ask if it was ok, so I tried my hardest to make the best of it.

Thankfully, my dear friend Kieffer is always game for a good adventure. She’s usually the one who calls me to make sure I get out of the house every once in a while.

Kieffer and I actually met back in the big city of Rexburg, ID our freshman year of college when pterodactyls still roamed the earth. She lived a couple of doors down from me, but I really hadn’t met her yet. One night where the overwhelming load of homework topped with homesickness was about to do me in, I heard a knock at my door. There stood Kieffer, dressed like a beggar in tattered clothing, blacked out front teeth, ratted out hair with leaves in it, and black charcoal smeared all over her face. She was holding a swaddled Cabbage Patch doll and a tin can as she said in her best British accent, “A penny for the little one?” What? A penny for the…who are you? It was so hard to tell if she was being serious or not because she never broke character. Even when I noticed the doll and started laughing out loud, she stood there with that blasted can and kept repeating “A penny for the little one?” I grabbed some spare change to get her off my doorstep, but had a good laugh when I learned that she ordered pizza with all the money she raised with that stunt. Kieffer and I soon became fast friends, playing pranks on roommates that still make me cry, we were that funny.

Kieffer also shares my love of snowshoeing. We snowshoed all last season, even packing around our friend Karen's twins while I was 3 months pregnant. Something interesting about me is that there are few things I love more than snowshoeing. I think it is the only reason winter was invented. It is so much fun, I even bought a pair of "top of the line" snowshoes for my husband, when I was as single as they come. It was part of my visualizing that one day I would actually have a husband and together we would go snowshoeing. Pretty hefty expectations, I know. Well, I did get me a good husband, but the snowshoeing part wasn't exactly as I saw it in my head. Either there was too much work to be done or maybe I just wore him down after a year of asking…who knows.

Russ was a good sport to accompany Kieffer and I for Lucy’s first snowshoeing expedition. We zipped our little 2 month old snow bunny in her purple snowsuit, strapped her in the Bjorn, wrapped a blanket around her and then tried to zip her inside my coat. Yeah, she was plenty warm.


We had a nice time enjoying the snow in such beautiful surroundings, just 15 minutes from our house. We are so lucky.

We built Lucy’s first snowman and I realized that on days like this, I guess winter isn’t all that bad...