Winter Wonderland

North American winters can be brutal, so it's not unnatural for people to travel to warmer climes. A friend whose December and January seemed to be one snow day after another took her children on a combination work-and-time-to-themselves trip to Florida. She blogs about it here. Idyllic, no? She's smart.

This year we thought we should take a winter vacation too. Add into it that we would mark our 25th anniversary together in February, and there was really only one place to go.

The scene of the crime, so to speak. Newfoundland.

I'll let you think on that for a bit.

It was a snowy February in Newfoundland, and we spent the morning of our actual anniversary snowblowing. It was a scream.


By the end of the trip, we were in spiritual sync with the local Anglicans.


This is what it looked like one crisp Sunday afternoon when we went for a walk in Quidi Vidi Village:




And a walk around Quidi Vidi Pond, to see what birds might be found.


There were, in fact, birds; a few of them lifers.

Coots.


Gulls-a-gogo. Peterson is not great on helping figure them out. Now that we're home with Sibley, we're going to try to decipher them. We know that we had Herring, Glaucous, and Iceland gulls, not to mention Greater Black-backed and possibly Little gulls. There was something resembling a Black-legged Kittiwake, too.

Is this one a Black-headed gull?

Notice how I'm not being definitive. Gulls might be plentiful, but they require research.

Ducks, on the other hand, are more cooperative. A pair of Northern Pintails.


And Tufted ducks.


Is it just me or does this guy have a "come hither" look in his eye?

A solitary goose. Greater white-fronted? Peterson says not in Newfoundland, but Sibley says the Greenland variant sometimes. I hate to think it's just some barnyard cross, but of course it is.


The spin around Quidi Vidi was truly great, if a little cold. For one thing, you get to say things like, "We took a spin around Quidi Vidi." For another, as is often the case with a spin around Quidi Vidi, it proved to be a remarkable tonic for the previous night's over-indulgence.

That would be our anniversary party. Most people, I guess, get these things catered. But I just wasn't able to help myself. Give me a pile of people I love, and I must cook for them!

Before:


After:


Of course, there were helpers galore.

Tim, Kelly, Claire, Liz, Clare, and Sally.

And there was a generous host, who lent us her house.

Claire and Kelly

Friends and family came along for the free meal.

Claire's spouse Larry with my sister Elizabeth. And several bottles of wine.


Stratton spawn, even the one with the mustache, cannot avoid the mustache game when they get together.


Nieces and nephews. For ages I tried to figure out where that hand underneath my chin came from. It is a nephew torturing a niece.


The Buehler contingent, minus 1: Aunt Nancy, Bodil, and Sharon.


The missing Buehler chatting up one of the nieces, and a couple of lawyers chatting up who knows what.

And then there was us, 25 years on, Kelly still singing and me still being the world's biggest sop.


Worth sticking around for.