A whole lotta snow

 We finally had our first big Minnesota snow!  The snow started the night of Daniel and Caroline's party

this is what it looked like from the car window when we left the party

and this is one of the small trees in the front of the house that same night

and THIS is what we woke up to!  Winter Wonderland!

and Alfie the Elf, of course

The snow was REALLY coming down

And Joacim WAS finally able to use our new snowblower.  We got it a few days before because we heard about the storm...thank goodness we got it because this would've been AWFUL to shovel!

and we also had a sled for Izzy

do you see how the snow is crusted on to her coat hood and hat ties?

Self-portrait!

the dogs got in on the fun too!

Here's a video of them enjoying the snow:

Dec 9 2012 - happy dogs in the snow from Jenn Trunk on Vimeo.

I don't think he's been this happy in quite awhile :)

or her....

Here she is making a snow angel
Dec 9 2012 - quick snow angel from Jenn Trunk on Vimeo.

and Joacim had to get in on the sledding action....he's a little OCD about the sled trail :)

and then I tried to sled with Izzy

but I realized that I'm a miserable failure when it comes to steering the sled, and consistently crashed :)

I was playing outside in a pair of thermal underwear and ratty old sweats.  After sledding and being caked with snow, I decided that I'm completely unprepared (clothing-wise) for Minnesota winters, so we headed to the Mall of America to see if we could come up with some snow gear for me.

but first we had to drop off Izzy's letter to Santa at the red mailbox in Macy's

We were lucky we went because we got some great deals, and loaded up the whole family for the winter.  We're totally ready for the weather now :)

and this was the beautiful site on a backroad we took on the way home...

I think we ended up getting around a foot of snow, or somewhere close to that in the end.  But what I love here is that it's still pretty the next day, and the day after that.  It didn't get warm and slushy the day after and make a big mess.  If it's always like this, then I think we'll have no problem embracing Minnesota winters :)