Merry Christmas!

I've been very blessed to have my brother Tim visiting for the past week.   Since he flew, Elvis didn't get to come along and stayed with my cousins back in Michigan.   Reports are that he's been doing a lot of howling - especially at night, but that Pete has found the way to Elvis' heart is through his stomach.   Carrying around a few choice treats in the pocket makes any corgi (at least ours) an instant friend.

Part of my Christmas Eve tradition is to ring the Salvation Army bell for the Red Kettle Campaign at my neighborhood grocery store.   It was a lot more fun to do it this year with Tim, and, with temperatures in the upper 40's, we were able to bring the girls along and take the kettle outdoors.    I'm quite sure they brought in a few bucks - especially from the kids who were begging Mom to pet the dogs.  

On Christmas Day we went for a couple of nice walks - one of them over the Main Avenue bridge in Fargo (which is gorgeous) and the other at a large park a few miles north of town.   It's our favorite place to go in the winter for cross country skiing or just a good romp in the snow.   This year, with our lack of snow, it was a hike through the mud.  Hence, the girls have had two baths in the past 72 hours and I'm still finding clumps of mud in the carpet!   Nonetheless, we had a great time and were sad to say goodbye to Tim this morning.  Hopefully he and Elvis will do a speaking tour over spring break in the Upper Midwest and stay with us for a few days.  

It doesn't look like Christmas without snow!

We are headed into the second week of December and we have no snow!!  It's been an extremely dry Fall, which has been great for the rivers, as we actually have a shot at a minor flood (or none at all!) next Spring.   That would be glorious!!   But it just doesn't look like Christmas without snow; not in Minnesota!  I can't remember the last time we had a 'brown' Christmas but it's been quite a few years.   We still have three weeks to go so hopefully we'll get a few inches by then.

Not only has it been dry, but it's been unseasonably warm and sunny.   No complaints about that!!  I took the girls to the Holiday Lights parade a couple weeks ago.  We go every year, but it's usually so cold that we don't last long.  This year it was 35 degrees and we saw most of the parade.  (I always try to get there after the firetrucks - with sirens blaring - have gone by.)   The girls were dressed in their winter jackets and reindeer antlers and they got more attention than the floats, I think.   They were pretty darn cute.