2010 snow!!!

This winter has been an amazing winter in NC! Troutman has gotten a lot of snow and we have enjoyed ALL of it!!! This winter I have had more snow in NC than the previous 6 years combined. Andrea pointed out just the 1/29 snow was more than the previous 6 years combined!! Eli loves the snow as much as his Mama and Dada!!

Snow provides a LOT of work at the park, especially because we are not really equipped for the amount that we got this year, but it is so much fun. I love the silence that fills the woods when they are covered in snow. Eli also gets really excited about seeing the snow and will ask us to open the door so he can look at it. We talked about a snowsuit and boots for Eli but decided not to get one and now we regret it, maybe next year :-)

Enjoy our winter wonderland pics and videos!

As posted earlier we got about 4" on 12/19/09

01/29/10 Snow starts to fall, by 01/30/10 we have about 8":

Eli and Mama walking in the snow.

This video is from 1/29 while the 8" of snow was coming down. We had to get out and play in it before bath time, because I had to work the next day.

This video is from after work on 1/30. We were not able to get all of the roads scraped so we were able to sled in the road on one of the big hills. We had to use a garbage can lid. This was Eli's first sledding experience and he loved it. He would not make a single sound on the ride but would say "Mo', Mo'" (more, more) as soon as the ride was over. My slide is slower because it was the first run and I had to pack down the track :-) I promise we sped up in subsequent rides, as you saw with Andrea!

Eli didn't have a scarf so we used an ear warmer :-)

Our garbage can lid sled.

Enjoying the snow!

He didn't sled by himself we just staged this pic.

02/08/10 through 02/12/10 Blowing Rock, NC for training:

I was in Blowing Rock for 5 days for a Search and Rescue training and I had a blast. There were 9 rangers in the training and some of us went sledding on a hill near the Blue Ridge Parkway office.

This day only one other ranger and I went sledding. It was just us because it was VERY cold and windy, in fact we were under a blizzard warning :-)

This video is of me snowboarding in a blizzard :-) This is one of the only runs that I made it all the way without a spill! It was so much fun, and recorded on one of those crazy smart phones! I am going down the gentler side of the hill.



This video is of an Elk Knob ranger sliding down the steeper side of the same hill the day after the previous video.

Sledding partners.

Sledding at the parkway office.

The view from my hotel room at the training.

02/12/10 into 02/13/10 about 4":
The day after I got back from the mountains we got 4" of snow. It was very powdery snow, and again Eli enjoyed it.

Eli likes to try and throw the snow.

Eli and Dada walking in the snow.

This video is of Eli playing in the snow. We also let him ride this smaller hill on his own. If we had let the video run a little longer you would hear him ask for more!

Eli and Mama on the boat launch.

Eli likes the water too much to look at the camera.

Mama, Eli, and Dada.

We weren't the only ones who left tracks.

Raccoons!