Snow & Ice

I think I would be safe to say that one of Ryans famous pastimes is snow-play. Back in his early years, he and his best friend Greg Hart did their share of snow caving, snow camping, cross country skiing and snow shoeing. During the winter Ryan often pines for his good buddy Greg. At the first sign of snow, I watch Ryan look longlingly out the window (towards the mountains if there are any), and over a cup of Pero or hot Tang, he will pull on his story-telling pants and tell us a tale about a snow cave he and "Egg" once built, or an avalanche he, Greg & his brothers "rode" and lived to tell the tale of. On one particular trip (when he & I were engaged) Ryan even carved out the words "Ry + Ang" into a snowy mountainside with his snow shoes (the words covered the WHOLE MOUNTAINSIDE...he had to ski down the mountain and a 1/2 mile or so away to snap the picture).

During a good winter snowfall, I can always count on losing Ryan to the outdoors for a good part of the day if there is enough snow to build an igloo or a snow cave with. This year there was plenty of snowfall in Sanpete County while we were there for Christmas. Greg wasn't around long enough to go snow camping with (although we did meet up with he and Heidi for dinner), but Ryan was happy to recruit Thys, Hunter & Uncle Mark into his snow games. This year they built a fairly decent snow cave together (which Thys & Hunter slept in a night or two), and one afternoon Ryan and Mark scouted out some old mining grounds (note the "Danger: Mining Area: Keep Out" sign the boys disregarded) to take the kids sledding on. The kids built a pretty sweet snow jump, and even the littles (Josie & Emmett) had a ball on their little bunny slopes.

We also had a super-fun day of ice-skating in Salt Lake with the cousins, that I am trying to hunt down pics of...