Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

OK, I know the month is half over, but I'm wishing you all a happy new year, anyway!

Toshi, one of my former homestay students, surprised me with a gift from his mom and him. These are the traditional new year's gift crackers that are given among friends in Japan. Thank you, Toshi!

I'm sure there is a significance in each of these crackers, but before I could text Toshi to ask him, I hit the 'publish' button by mistake!  Not a good way to start out the blogging year, eh?

SNOW!

We got snow this week--quite a bit by Pacific Northwest standards.  This is Murtaja, a new student from Saudi.  This was the 2nd time he'd experienced snow!

This is Ahmed who just came from Saudi a couple weeks ago.  He's still acclimating to our cool, wet weather, and then we surprise him with snow--his very first experience with the fluffy white stuff.  He was all smiles!

You gotta admit, snow has a way of turning bare trees into a real work of art.

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Last night the sky was pregnant with a new storm about to break over us and it captured my gaze..  I just had to get a picture, and took this one around 6:30 p.m.

It was snowing when I got up this morning.  I think we got around 6 inches.  But by the time I actually got around to measuring it, it had melted a little and had begun to crust over.

There is a certain ethereal beauty that snows leaves in its wake, don't you agree?.

It's not often that I get icicles from my eaves!

School was cancelled today, and all my homestay students got to sleep in this morning.  Even my boss called and told me to stay home!  So, it's been a lazy, fun, relaxing day.  We should have made a snowman, but one of my homestay students woke up with a sore throat, and the other didn't have the warm clothes for it!

Staying warm,

Love,

Homestay Mama