winter wonderland.

Mid-January brought many "gifts" to our Midwestern city. They included snow, ice, freezing temperatures and power outages. The days leading up to the massive snow storm I had hopes that our family would be able to take a hike since the snow was to arrive on the weekend. I have come to love our moments on the trail in the snow. 

Waking Saturday morning we found in our yard a beautiful view. Since ice coated trees and bushes before the wet, heavy snow fell the snow stuck to the ice, but all the weight did quite a number and caused an amazing amount of limbs and wires to fall in our metro area. Thankfully, we have maintained our yard so that we only lost one small limb from our beautiful Sugar Maple tree. 

Since our power wasn't out we decided to head out quickly to a nearby trail and I'm so glad we did. After returning home our power did go out for a long enough duration that we needed to stay at a hotel. But I'm so glad we made the effort to hike a few miles in such beauty because I've never seen the snow envelop the trees like this and maybe I never will again.