Sunday

You have to love your winters -- that's the yard sign I'd put up were I into yard signs. The more you look for ways to love them up here, in Wisconsin, the happier you'll be.

Today was easy to love: a breath above freezing (maybe by one degree), gently sunny, with just enough breeze to send a kite flying.

Chickens, heading out!

Changed their minds. It's not that warm! Besides, the food is back in the barn.

Breakfast is all fruits and cakes -- perfect for a February morning meal!

And just a bit later, Ed and I go out to take a look at the Frozen Assets Winter Festival on Lake Mendota. Ice sculptures, ice skating, kite flying. A few kite skiers, bike riders,  a lot of kids liking the freedom of tumbling around on top of the lake. Really, nothing more than that, nothing less.

Yep, gotta love our winters!

I wish we had taken the grandkids, but on the other hand, they would have wanted to join the kite flyers (you could purchase kites on the spot from the Kite Club) and flying a kite on the lake is no easy feat, especially for the more complicated kites that are just soooo attractive -- to adults and kids alike.

It's good to see people strolling on the frozen lake. It reminds you of what's underneath all that snow and ice -- a water basin rich with aquatic life. Something to honor and preserve.

(Ed and cats)

(Our cats love winter too! Inside, on the bed, in sunshine.)

In the evening the young family is here for dinner once again. It's been a while!

We all love familiar routines and the kids fall into theirs: cheese and long crackers for Sparrow, plain cheese for Sandpiper. The boys play, while Snowdrop lingers in the kitchen, listening in on adult conversation.

At some point the two older guys go and mess with Ed. He is so much stronger than they are that it never quite ends as they planned. There's a lot of laughter in it though. Always.

Dinner: I'm still not changing the menu for them. In the winter  there are only three dinners that I cycle through without much thought to innovation. No one will dispute that if it's Sunday it must be crunchy chicken, or seafood spaghetti time, or just sometimes -- tacos with shrimp. Always with corn, because someone here will have a face riddled with disappointment should there be none on her plate. Adults get a salad too. Rare is the day that I do not make a salad for supper.

(Sandpiper is a happy eater, though his preferences change from day to day.)

A brief after-dinner play.... (the boys dominate the Wobbel board... Snowdrop is itching to take charge of it, but she knows that she has many more opportunities to play with it than they do, so she hangs back...)

They leave, I clean up, Ed and I settle in for our evening together. Always calm, always wonderfully intimate. Our chocolate. Our viewing choice. Our time to stretch out and feel that swell of gratitude for it all.

with love...