Snow in Colorado

It snowed four inches on our second day visiting Nora in Fort Collins, Colo., and here are some pictures as proof. It's a novelty for us Western Washingtonians, so we don't really mind the inconvenience. But I wouldn't want to have to coordinate getting Soren out the door in the appropriate outerwear every day for the next six months. Look at how wet his feet got!
Soren loved clearing snow from Auntie Nora's sidewalk and road. He is such a good little helper, once a task is demonstrated.
The next day the temps were still in the high 20s, so we bundled up to take a walk on a trail along the Poudre River. You can see not much snow had melted. Here's a family portrait, sans Soren: Ann, Nora, Shelly, Bill.
Here is Soren modeling the necessity of layering. We bought the vest and some other warm clothes at the ARC, Nora's favorite thrift shop here.
Down the trail he goes...

(Soren talks about his new friends on his blog.)

Visiting Nora in Colorado

I'm posting in real-time at the end of our first full day in Colorado, where we are visiting my sister Nora for five days. Soren and I left Jeff working in Washington and made the trip with my parents, Bill and Ann (thank goodness for grandparental assistance on the flight here!).

It's nice to get out of PT, and we needed to see Nora in her graduate-school setting. She's been at the University of Northern Colorado since August 2008 and will finish her master's in public health program next May. The school is in Greeley, but she lives in Fort Collins -- both are north of Denver.
Nora hadn't seen Soren since June (here's a reminder of how much littler he was back then) and is thrilled that he is so much more mobile and able to really PLAY on the playground.
Devoted auntie that she is, Nora wore Soren in the Ergo when it was time for his one nap of the day (about 50% of our days are uni-nap now). The tour of her graduate-student office was just not exciting enough to keep his eyes open -- he fell asleep while she was checking her email.
I'll close with these photos (by Nora) of Soren with his grandpa Bill's ukelele. It's amazing how naturally he strikes the folk musician pose.
We look forward to three more full days of grins, then we fly back on Tuesday. For more grins, see Soren's blog for pix of today's pumpkin patch visit.

A note about the weather: we're getting our first taste of winter, with wet, non-sticking snow falling as our plane landed yesterday and now drier snow frosting the ground as we head to bed, although it was a lovely, clear and even warm day. Maybe Soren will get to frolick in the white stuff tomorrow!