my feet may stink, but the house smells lovely!!

so the frost above looked way cooler on the creek than it came out in the picture. oh well. the frost all over is just awesome and i really need a close up lens to capture all the details. maybe a christmas gift from me to me. i'll have to check into it.

at coffee after our monday walk andrea mentioned these things you can put on your filter and then when the heat comes on it makes the whole house smell wonderful...since i had to stop by lowes anyway for new filters i thought i'd check it out. i bought two filters and two smelly things. i have vanilla in and the house does smell nice. wow! very cool idea. of course, i'm always a bit paranoid of anything added to the filter or heater systems.....my mother instilled a strong fear of fire in me. i've also taken care of several people who have lost everything to house fires. just seems the most horrible thing to me. you lose all, can't even attempt to salvage stuff.
also, i had the sad experience of going down to a kennel fire site in los angeles to see if i could help out. i've never forgotten the sight of all those dead pets laid out in the street and the horror those owners must have returned home to after a vacation. the fire happened on one of those long holiday weekends. you assume your pet is safe and cared for when you put it in a kennel and then something like this happens. it wasn't the kennel owners fault, they were next to a paint store i think it was and it was the paint store that went up in flames. i've never been keen on kenneling my pets since that experience either.

boddhi the pup, tries to figure out what those sticks are that sandra has on her feet. i think it was a first for the puppy. we just went up the tank trail and back today. probably just over 3 miles. it was bitter cold out there so that was probably sufficient. we all had fun though. weather was clear blue skies and cold.
below is a post walk picture we took to highlight our frosty locks. in this sandra, kelly, andrea, tanya, tiffany and paula. a fine walking group. the hot chocolate post walk was especially appreciated!!

wasn't sure how any pictures from today would turn out. everytime i attempted to take a picture my sunglasses would totally fog up and i had no idea if the picture was a big blur or what. at those cold temps i'm happy when the camera works. the batteries all die out fast the colder the weather is. during the cold snap last winter i thought my cell phone was busted...the battery just kept dying out on me. luckily someone explained the whole cold killing the battery thing.

above is tiffany and paula. below is sunset about 3:30 pm that i took while i was driving back from lowes.

we ended up walking straight out the tank trail. sandra had brought her ski's so seemed like it might be easier. i prefer the big loops though to get off the main trail, but always nice to alter things up a bit. the creek runs though as you get to the military base road. i think the road made for rough skiing. lots of rocks. the creek looked pretty though with all the ice and ice waterfalls.

tanya got the award for best frost design...not that you can plan it, but it looked like she had a fur muff around her neck. we all got pretty frosted. the whole town is covered with frost. i would say temperatures today have ranged from neg 5 to pos 5. i was out there for a total of 3 hours at least so was pretty chilled out. should have headed to the alaska club and sat in the steam which a great treat after being outside, but i had stuff to do at home.

another blurry picture of blossom but i loved how she was airborne leaping on to indy. she is pretty sleepy tonight. she likes to keep track of everyone and coming back down the tank trail sandra booked it on those ski's with a downhill. blossom had to run way ahead of me to check on her and then run back to check on all of us.

this was actually a before shot. tanya arrived early this week so she was already frosted up. it's hard to see everyones faces cause the breath catches the sunlight behind us...looks kinda cool though i thought. today's group...kelly, tanya, andrea, tiffany, sandra, paula and me. so the humans out numbered the dogs today. 5 dogs.

just a picture of some hoar frost from the bog walk this morning with rio and blossom. in my rush as we excited the trail i accidently dropped blossom's chuck it toy. when i went back hours later it had been set up for me. thanks to the random person who did that and all who passed by and opted not to take it for themselves. not that it's worth alot of money...just that it's such a great toy and blossom likes it. it's hard to manage two dogs, leashes, the poop bags, camera and the toy some days.

my eyes are burning tonight. i'm guessing it has to do with being outside for so long in the cold.

sarah palins book comes out tomorrow. i find it difficult to imagine it will be of any interest at all. some people really love her though and are hoping she'll run for president in 1012. it does seem funny to me that these same people chastise president obama as he has no experience and then they want her, who also has no experience. i think mostly nobody trusts politicians so anyone with political experience is automatically suspect. i've never been enamored with either party. i've also never been able to get totally behind any one elected official. they all seem to disappoint eventually so i don't ever want to be the person with the bumper sticker on my car for an elected official that totally screwed up.

it's late and my net flix movie looks interesting. i'm off to snuggle into a warm bed and fall asleep to the smell of vanilla.