nice surprises

We have been given some very nice, very unexpected surprises lately. Two, two! days of snow! The first was talked about here and the second day, while beautiful, did not culminate in a lot of play time. It was too wet out and not quite cold enough for the snow to stick. In advance though, we were generously given this awesome sled from one of Matt's work neighbors.

Unfortunately, there was not enough snow (but I did consider mud sledding, just to use the beautiful thing!). Really the best part of the day was watching the snow fall and observe all the birds playing in it, they really seemed to be frolicking-if birds do such things.

The other surprise was a gift in the mail from a favorite uncle (and aunt, as I am sure she was in on it too).

This was so much fun to open. Just the magnificent case elicited an adrenalized "oooooh!". It is a Bausch & Lomb 60mm zoom telescope (aka-The Discoverer). It belonged to my grampa, who gave it to my aunt Martha when she was taking some photography classes. My uncle sent me the most flattering email soon after Thanksgiving about some pictures I had taken & said he had something he wanted to send me. This was not what I expected. I knew it would something great & useful (I was thinking maybe a book). I cannot wait to use this! I need to get an adapter for it to work with my cameras, but after that it should work without a hitch. I am still doing a little research on this exact model. I feel very privileged to have received this thoughtful gift. Thank you so much, Tom & Martha. I look forward to sharing more pictures with you!

btw, the table the lens is on is a child's table, so the perspective may be a little wonky.