"She loved winter, snow, and ice"

 January was strangely snow-less this year, which made for fantastic pond skating. 

Perfect black ice at Menotomy Rocks Park

 Tessie can now keep up with all of us on the ice

For the first time, the Arlington Reservoir was skateable, in places

 We skated up in the swimming inlet and then portaged across to the much bigger reservoir

Those black things are invasive water chestnut seedpods and they menace the reservoir in all seasons

 We even made it onto Spy Pond, where the ice fishermen out numbered skaters. We were having a great time until a policeman arrived and rousted us off the "unsafe" ice.

 Erin explored the swampland behind her school with some friends

 An ent!

 How were these thin sheets of ice formed, suspended in the marsh grass a foot above the ground?

More mysterious ice 

 Erin and Caroline continue to swim for the local rec center team

Heather loves doing math problems with the girls 

 and sometimes we send them to explore the sewer

or practice being scientists

Christmas 2018

 Christmas came one day early this year

 Tessie caught up with an old friend

 and then we visited Nana and Grampa Mike in sunny, warm Florida

 Looks like Black's transcontinental route is stalled at Chattanooga. Maybe we should investigate the area later this year.

Blog viewership is down lately and maybe some cat photos will reverse the slide

I've heard that tooth photos are even better than cat photos for viewership. These are Erin's and those canines and first premolars look ready to go.

Carols at the spinet