Just Chillin'

I know I've mentioned this before- but it gets cold here. I thought these cold temperatures might be hard for me to live with, but for some reason I really haven't been bothered by it. In fact, I find myself adjusting to the cold in ways that I thought impossible. If you had told me a year ago that I would find a sunny, 28 degree day to be warm and pleasant and that I would happily play outside with my children for more than an hour, I would have attempted to raise my eyebrow at you. I can't actually raise just one, but I would have imagined that I was making a quizzical expression while my forehead scrunched up in an attempt to get just one eyebrow to move by itself. This playing outside in the cold thing, however, happened! It was lovely. I have pictures to prove it.
Also, the cold can bring beauty with it. I've often marveled at the sparkling ice-rimmed trees, and the beautiful snow-covered hills in the park behind our house where our boys sled. The cold weather brought me my first experience of seeing what locals call a "sun-dog". It's like a rainbow, but the light is being refracted by ice crystals suspended in the air instead of by raindrops. As a result, the colors form a partial or complete halo around the sun. I don't have a picture of one yet, but there are plenty of pictures online if you don't know what I'm talking about. The point is, they are super cool. Pun intended.
Anyway, here are some pictures of my boys at the playground in our balmy 28 degree weather a week and a half ago. Watching how much fun they were having makes me wish I'd gotten to play on a playground in my snowsuit. You definitely get some awesome speed on the slides. This is us, just chillin' in ND.