As the weather warms up, lets reflect.

ILOVE the spring and fall. They are my favorite seasons because of the few precious weeks of what I consider a decent temperature range. That range being between 65 and 85 degrees. The closer you get to that 85, the more I like a nice breeze.

The past year in the Ohio valley has been an interesting weather year. Mild temperatures into November, and Septembers wind storm. In September, we had a "hurricane force" wind storm in a large part of Southern Indiana and Northern Kentucky. This is a picture of my in-laws back yard. They lost several small trees and had countless branches ripped from the larger trees. I don't know how far reaching the wind storm was but it was definitely an interesting experience. We were one of the lucky few who were only without power for a few hours. I think it was maybe 18 hours. Not to bad. But alot of areas were out for almost two weeks. The clean up was several months worth of long shifts for Duke Energy workers getting power restored and tree removal crews working long hours.

Then, at the end of January, we had a winter storm. First, the sky dumped anywhere from 3 inches to 6 inches depending on your location and to top off all of that beautiful snow, we got a layer of ice to go on top of it. It was beautiful to see on the trees. Dangerous, and damaging, but absolutely beautiful. Let me say, if it is going to be cold, I want something to show for it and let me tell you. This storm didn't disappoint. The boys and Eden loved playing in the snow. This is in our front yard. The boys figured out that if they stomped on the ice, they could get to the snow and thought it was great fun to throw snow at mommy. Notice daddy is behind the camera and away from the snow throwing fun. ;o) This was another one of those storms where the weather knocked out power all over town and we out in some areas for two weeks and we never lost power, not even for a minute. We were without power at the office though so I made it to work late the first morning, and I called Mickey at home to tell him that we didn't have power at the office but I would hang around and do some filing and see if it would come back on after a few hours. I was there for about three hours and the power didn't come back on and the office got progressively colder. When I got in it was about 70 degrees and when I left the thermostat said 64 degrees. That's pretty cold in an office that size! Mom lost power as well. Her power was out from for almost a full week. So, Mom, Erin, Dana, Keith, Wyatt, Dalton and Mady all came in to our house and stayed with us for the duration. I think maybe, we might have gotten a feel for what it must be like to live in the Ferree house when all of the kids were still at home. Thirteen people were in this house with

three bedrooms and on a blow up mattress in the living room. It was an experience! We did play alot of SkipBo. Me, Mom, Erin and Dana did anyway.

Here is a picture of the Japanese Maple in the front yard with the blue LED Christmas lights still on it. It was so pretty. It lit up the whole front yard with the ice on it. Not that it didn't when there was no snow or ice. The picture below was taken out at the in-laws again. The kids absolutely love to go to Grandma and Grandpa's. There are so many fun things to do. Not to mention, 4 wheelers, tractor, and a golf cart to ride on. They love it all and I love it because it's safe for them to run all over the country side and wear themselves out!

Look at the ice on these trees. When the sun hits them they just light up and it's so breathtakingly beautiful! With all of that reflection. It's time to get back to the Spring weather at hand and say that I welcome spring and love to see the flowers blooming and the trees starting to sprout leaves.