The first significant snowfall of the season left us with about 5 inches of fluffy powder and morning temperatures in the teens. It was a good day to spend indoors. Using a recipe from her upcoming cookbook, Jeanine baked ten cranberry-lemon bread loaves.  She spent the rest of the day trying to keep Maya and I away from them. I spent the day obsessing over the photo kit I will bring with me when I head out to the Southwest for the first two weeks of January.  Weather permitting, I am planning a long hike and overnight at Havasu Falls which means carry weight will be a factor. My standard travel set is 12 pounds. Ideally, I would like to cut that by half for the 24 mile round trip hike. These days I prefer to limit my total pack weight to 30 pounds and a 20% allocation to photo gear seems about right.

In preparation for a tree trimming party tomorrow, we started decorating the house and added lights to our Christmas tree.