Who knew that the 2024 Eclipse would not be the only extreme weather event of the day?
After the eclipse ended, the clouds of the morning returned, and those clouds eventually brought with them a strong thunderstorm that included lots of hail at our house. Take a look:
All that white stuff in the grass is hail. Lots and lots of hail. In the past when we have had any hail, it has just been small bits for only 30 seconds maximum. This time around, we got large hail for around five minutes.
I don’t know if you heard, but we had a solar eclipse here in the United States in April 2024. If you are in the United States, I do not know how you could NOT have heard about it, because it was everywhere, especially if you were within a hundred miles or so of the path of totality as we were.
I had resolved not to try to take any photos of the eclipse, knowing that they would look very similar to the photos from the 2017 eclipse (spoiler alert - it looked just about exactly the same, except the sun was slightly more covered)
On January 14 and 15, 2024, we got some snow. Lots of snow, actually. I took some preliminary measurements while the snow was still falling, but I never did go back and do a final measurement, but I would guess that we got around 5 to 6 inches of snow. And then we had some really cold weather after the snow, so that the snow has stayed on the ground for several days. It is actually still here at the time of this writing.
Here is a video look at some of the Christmas decorations around our house in 2023:
All our decorations are not included in this video, but I did try to hit some of the highlights. Yes, there have been photos as well, but sometimes video can capture just a little more.
Mickey Mouse shaped Christmas ornaments hang from Mickey Mouse lights in a doorway in our house for the 2023 Christmas Season.
Believe it or not, we do have Christmas decorations that are not shaped like a certain cartoon mouse. But we do also have several that fit that category, too. These are just a small sample of some that Laura ordered online from somewhere or other, and they go nicely on the Mickey lights which have adorned the doorway between our den and kitchen for a while.
Our Christmas tree for 2023 stands proudly in our den, lighting up the night.
You might not be able to tell here, but we like lots of lights on our Christmas tree. Lots and lots of lights. The more, the better. Is there a light limit on these things? Thankfully, the new LED lights use a lot less energy than the old lights, so we are not tripping circuit breakers or anything like that.
Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care, as part of our Christmas 2023 decorations in our house.
If you know much about us, I am sure you can guess who each stocking belongs to. The football stocking would obviously be Jaylin’s. And it should be obvious that the cowboy boot stocking belongs to Laura, even if you do not see that her name is on it. The stocking on the right is slightly folded over, but you can probably see that it has Mickey Mouse ears and buttons, and that one is mine.
A rocking horse sits in front of a Christmas tree at our house, one of our Christmas 2023 decorations.
Christmas decorations have started to spring up all over our house. We have lots of decorations everywhere, and Laura takes care to make sure everything looks just right.
Christmas inflatables of Mickey Mouse and Olaf from Frozen are highlighted by a spotlight on a foggy evening in our front yard.
We have had our Mickey and Olaf inflatables for some years now, and they add a bit of joy and happiness to our front yard each Christmas season. However, over time their internal lights have died, which makes it difficult to see them at night out here in the wilderness. So we recently got a spotlight to light them up at night. Now they can easily be seen, although usually we are the only ones who see them. But that is fine.
Thanksgiving 2023 has come and gone, but it will live on in photos! We had our traditional Thanksgiving meal with my parents, complete with turkey, dressing, vinegar green beans, strawberry pretzel salad, cranberry sauce, and much more! And after dinner and a bit of a rest, we decided to take a family photo, as we often do. But if you know us, you know that just one photo will not do. Traditional and non-traditional, you might say. So here are our photos for this year.
