American birthday

Thanks for all your emails, calls, skypes and good thoughts! I had a wonderful day!

 

  

 

Spring skiing

It is one of the warmest if not the warmest January in Seattle. Never the less, skiing conditions at Snoqualmie Pass Nordic Center were wet but acceptable. Still about a meter snow - at a height of less than 1000m at a latitude similar to the northern France  (47°N). The warm weather though does not mean less rain, actually we are getting more precipitation than usual (This is opposite to conditions Seattle has in general during a year with an El Nino phenomena in the tropical pacific ... I could start talking about Arctic Oscillation, jet stream and other meteorological atmospheric patterns but I guess this blog is the wrong platform for that).

So here are some morning and afternoon pictures we took today:
A gray morning with snow/rain showers in the mountains followed by a sunny afternoon in Seattle.

Jonte going through the archs.

Theda going downhill

Ski class cannot happen often enough for Jonte.

And the afternoon:

Our winter vegetables - broccoli, radish, carrots, salad, spinach ... all growing good.

Perfect conditions, above average warm and humid.

 Many spring bulbs pushing out the first greens - I wonder when they will start to flower.

And one croccus next to the front door already about to start to flower - unbelievable, Germany is covered in snow and faces a new cold wave from the east while here the spring flowers start in mid/end January.

In the last weeks the kids had again a go at the camera ... here are a few of the photos they took. We actually planned to make a photo album with only pictures they took so far, but never got around to do so. 

First spring days

Doors are open. Kids playing outside for hours without jackets. Narne just had his two hour nap outside as well. Spring flowers are coming through the ground. Will leave in a second to go down to Magnuson Park to play at the beach with some of our friends. Feels nice, but strange - it is January - we will be skiing again on Saturday :-) - hope we will have enough snow yet.

Skiing and sliding

Just 2 videos from our day out in the mountains having fun in the snow.

(For all facebook users if you cannot see the videos, see them at: http://schmidtko.blogspot.com )

All you need is a piece of plasitc:


First time on skis:





Well, actually it was their 2nd time on skis, but the first very short time at -12degCwas only a quarter of an hour or so. Though it did feel like ages due to the strong wind and high humidity. This time we spend several hours out there.

Christmas days

Just before we celebrate Theda's and Jonte's 4th birthday tomorrow, we at least want to upload some pictures of the past ten days. After all the christmas preparations were done, we spent some very nice christmas days.

Baking cookies together - what a mess!

 

we had some mild days we spent outside

Christmas Eve: Waiting for Santa/ Weihnachtsmann at Magnuson Park

 

 

 Christmas Day: Going to the mountains to try the new skis

view of Mt. Baker on our way to Stevens Pass in the Cascades

view of the Cascades

fun in the snow although it is -12 degrees Celsius

Habt einen guten Rutsch! And a happy new year!

Frohe Weihnachten - Merry Christmas

We wish all you dear friends and family a Merry Christmas! Right now you are celebrating Chistmas Eve in Germany - so will we in a few hours - our american friends will celebrate tomorrow morning. Last grocery shopping is to be done (I take the kids with me so Katrin has a kids - free - pre Christmas Eve hour to do last preparations). The twins are extremely excited about everything, more and more every year - when does it start to ease again? In 10, 12 or 14 years? Anyway it is great to feel the excitement with them.
We hope you find a rest, a moment of freedom and relaxation over the holidays!