I hope that everyone had a merry Christmas. We had a very relaxing Christmas at the Evans household. Katie and Chris were sadly not with us this year (they spent Christmas with Chris's family in Chicago). I enjoyed having some quiet time to relax after completing my first semester of teaching!

Dad got a new pair of snow shoes for Christmas, which conveniently means that the Evans house has three pairs.  We went for a Christmas Eve snowshoe and managed to stay warm in the cold (but sunny) weather.
We also enjoyed having some Christmas guests come and visit us in the yard.
Today Dad didn't have work, so after shoveling the driveway we all enjoyed some fun snow recreation.  We managed to dig up an old purple plastic sled from the garage and tested its strength against the rocky cliff in the backyard.  Here you can see our path. 
This picture is taken from about halfway down the slope and displays the rocky terrain.  Our goal was to launch off the rock, fly through the air, and go faster down the deathly slope.  As often as not, we would crash into the rock and tumble out of the sled.
This action shot, taken by Dad, shows me about to wipe-out after crashing into the rock.
Mom safely made it over the rock and is continuing down the hill.
In this picture, I made it all the way to the bottom of the hill, but ran flat over a small tree... hurting myself, and also the tree.
We were so inspired by our sledding fun that we decided to invest in a new sled.  This one is hopefully a bit sturdier than the purple plastic one, and can also fit two people.  Here, Mom and I test our new purchase in the living room.  I especially like how short Mom's snow pants are.

I hope that your Christmas was as enjoyable as ours, and less dangerous too!

It's snowing like cats and dogs today! I'm amazed that school wasn't canceled! I took a quick picture out of my office of the snow. It's a little fuzzy because of the screen.
While I had my camera out, I figured I would snap a few pictures of my office. I share it with our engineering teacher, who is the head of technology. It looks like a mess... but it's a pretty well organized mess! This first picture is my desk...
This is our lovely work bench will all of our servers and a few things we're fixing.
Well, that's the weather update from Greeley. Hope you enjoyed it!

I had a really eventful weekend! We had a big snow storm on Friday and Saturday. It was the first big snow of the year (in Loveland). We still only got a few inches, but the roads were a big mess! This is the lake behind my apartment... it still wasn't frozen on Thursday, but by Friday it was frozen and covered in snow.

I braved the weather and went down to Denver on Saturday afternoon. Fortunately, my car has all-wheel drive and snow tires. I safely made it to Denver and went to the Ornament exchange at St. Catherine's Church. I went with my good friends Alina and Missy (below).
Women from the church decorate the tables and each table is gorgeous and has a unique theme. I didn't get any pictures of the tables... but maybe someone will e-mail me their pictures. I sat with my good friends, the Neals, and had a wonderful evening! The tables, food and company were all outstanding and I'm already looking forward to next year!

Holy Cow!  It's already December!  It doesn't feel like it's nearly Christmas... I think partially due to our lack of snow.  I'm (as usual) very behind in blogging.  I only point this out because I have a fantastic Thanksgiving picture to share... but it's a bit late.  I decided it was worth posting anyway. 

Megabyte has been quite sick lately... she seems to have gotten phenomena.  She was on some medication for a while, but wasn't improving.  I was really concerned that she wouldn't live long after stopping the medicine, but that was a month ago.  She's still acting like her cheery self, though she wheezes pretty loudly.  I was very happy she spent Thanksgiving with me, and hopefully will be around for Christmas as well.  

Moving on to happier news, our very good friends recently joined the Orthodox Church through a sacrament known as Chrismation.  My parents sponsored Tracy and Rich, and other church friends sponsored their lovely daughters.   I was thrilled to witness their special time and thought I would share these pictures. 

As usual, I'm a bit behind in my blogging! I was uploading pictures from my camera and just had to post these! Two weekends ago, my family was invited to attend the Aurora symphony with our good friends from church. Rich, the dad of the adorable young ladies in the pictures, plays the trumpet in the symphony, so we went with his wife, Tracy, their two daughters, Emma and Rosie, and Alina (another good friend from church). We all had dinner first at one of our favorite places, BJ's. We know BJ's from California, but one was just built in Aurora so it was the perfect chance to check it out.

Rosie was thrilled to be dressed up and going out!

We posed for a quick picture before heading to the symphony.
From left to right: Rosie, Me, Emma, Alina and my mom.
We had a fantastic evening and I loved hearing Rich and the whole symphony. I'm really looking forward to going again soon!

My old roommate from Westmont flew all the way from Sacramento to visit me last weekend! We had a FANTASTIC time! Lots of (rather ridiculous) adventures.

Alison came to school with me on Thursday and visited some history classes (she was a history major). So that was pretty fun to show her what I've been doing.

On Friday, we drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park. Alison is a National Park lover and was SO excited to visit. It was super windy the whole day and I have about 15 pictures of me with my hair in my face. I thought I would just post one. This was when I pulled to the side of the road to remove a tumbleweed from where it had lodged under my car.
This is Alison... she's clearly enjoying her visit to the mountains!
A nice picture of an aspen tree with a few leaves left. Alison used to intern for Chris doing photography, and I thought he would be proud of this shot she took.
This is a picture of our lunchtime villan. We were enjoying sandwiches on a rock when this fellow decided to join us. He was very forward and was not deterred by any amount of shoo-ing and stomping. We finally relocated to finish our lunch.
Al and I at a small pond.
As we were leaving, we saw a whole group of deer that were right by the street. They eventually crossed in front of the car and Alison took this picture. Sadly, we saw no elk.
After safely returning from our mountain excursions, Alison and I, being the super-cool people that we are, attended a party. It was a potluck type gathering at the house of another young teacher from my school. We decided to make this festive seven-layer dip.

Finally, to conclude our time together, we visited the Budweiser Brewery in Fort Collins. We liked seeing how the beer was made, but loved seeing the pretty Clydesdale horses. We also enjoyed sampling some beer.

All in all, we had a really fun visit together!

I have so much to catch up on! Things have been so busy lately! I've been meaning to post these pictures of when my dear friend Alina came to visit in Loveland. My mom was here too and we had a lovely time together!