A perfect end to 2007

On New Year's Eve, my family and I headed to Mt. Rainier. If you haven't ever been, you should seriously consider it. We stopped and picked up a few sleds because none of us have ever sledded before, and prepared ourselves for some fun in the snow. This was our drive toward the park entrance:

The picture is a little deceiving because of all the shade trees - it was a PERFECT, beautiful, sunny day. When we got there, we could only go up the road part of the way, because they were still plowing the road to Paradise (it's really called that!) where the sledding area is. We all parked to wait, and the doggies needed a potty break. Check out the wall of snow behind the cars. That's how deep the snow is, and God bless the plows! They basically made a tunnel for all the cars to get through.

I have to say, I have never in my life seen snow like this. Here, on the lower part of the mountain, there were about 8 feet of snow. About 1 1/2 feet of it had fallen just the night before, so it was pristine and powdery. This also made it quite difficult to walk in. Here's Haleigh following her Daddy on a trail, or what we assumed was a trail. :-) He had to haul her out once when she sank up to her waist!

Finally, the plowing was complete and we were allowed to move along. THIS is what we were greeted with . . . almost 11 feet of immaculate pure white snow. I'm thinking of sending these next two pics in for visitor brocures!

Here's my little snowbunny.

Here's Haleigh's first sledding attempt. It was really difficult on such soft snow, but after the "chute" was packed down by several sledding trips, it got better . . . and much faster.

This is me going down the "chute." I was screaming like a maniac.

Matt didn't sled due to a recent back injury, but he thoroughly enjoyed himself laughing at us.
Naturally, in all this snow, snow angels had to be made:

And at the end of this perfect day, we rested long enough for a picture on the way back down to the truck. You can see the top of the mountain behind us. It was a winter wonderland, and I'm so glad we got to experience it!