Winter Fun

While Crystal may see the title to this post as an oxymoron, what with her warm-weather Californian sensibilities and all, we have been doing some interesting things in the last little while.

One of the most exciting things, I think, is that I have finished my first semester of law school, complete with all the hours of tests and outlines, etc. While I was compiling my notes for my criminal law test, I accidentally converted ALL the notes I took for the semester into one single .pdf file. It was about 800 pages! (With a really small font, even!) Impressive how much stuff I have learned in the past four months - I can see real similarities between the infancy of my legal training and Clara's progress with the most obvious being that we can both hold up heads (albeit wobblily) by ourselves in our respective positions. I actually enjoyed exam time, because it showed me in a short (as short as four hours of intense typings is) time period all the things I'd learned in each of my classes. I feel like I did my best, so I can't complain when my grades come out - that will be just how I did.

If anyone is interested, I'll e-mail you copies of my final test outlines, and then you can look through all the information I synthesized for my finals.

Along with school, I have been spending time with my calling as our Boy Scout Troop's Committee Chair. Along with administrative duties, I have been able to go on some fun activities, including a recent hike through the woods at Highbanks Metro Park just north of Columbus. It is cool how this very wild-seeming place is just a few minutes from the city. There was a light snowfall coming down, which led to a beautiful winter scene (probably only beautiful because I was in like six layers of warm clothing, including my big down coat - this is probably for another post, but it is so cold here, the temperatures aren't that much lower than Utah, but the extra humidity puts a harsh bite in the air which really attacks you. Crystal made me a scarf, though, so that helps a lot!) Anyway, the hike was really great, and we got to see lots of stuff, including Indian mounds and a interesting display of a giant prehistoric fish at the park visitor's center. Read more about the fish here.

Here is the lovely winter woods. I can't wait to go back in the spring, when Crystal will accompany me!

The fish. It was as big as a mini-van and had an armored head with big, sharp teeth.

We also got to see some of the local birds on a bird feeder and I got a picture of a cardinal and a blue jay on the same bird feeder. They are such beautiful birds!

Finally, when we finished our cold hike, we had a wonderful lunch of Walking Tacos. I had never heard of such a meal, but it was wonderful. You take a little bag of corn chips and smash the chips to bits, then open the bag and dump in taco meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. and then just eat it all out of the bag with a spoon. So yummy and no cleanup for dishes!