A White New Year!

After celebrating Christmas with family in Pittsburg, CA, we headed east on Highway 4 into the Sierra Nevada mountains to spend New Years with some dear, long-time friends, Scott and Amanda Ferreira and their kids. Their family has a cabin at 5,000 feet elevation in Dorrington/Camp Connell (above Arnold) which is near Big Trees State Park in Calaveras County.

When we got up just past Arnold, I put chains on the good old DGC...

...and we went about 6 more miles up Highway 4...

...to Camp Clayton!

The kids all enjoyed lots of great snow play! (Front to back: Grace, Kaylin, Clayton, Trevor and Ben)

T.J. and Amy making snow angels:


T.J. and I built/created this snow man that he promptly named "Frosty:"

It snowed ALL day on Saturday and Sunday... and while our kids had played in the snow before, this was the first time they saw it falling! (Kaylin and Grace pictured)

This is how Trevor spent much of his time when we were all outside... fully snow-geared up, reclined in the snow and feeding himself snow! (here his is pictured with Ben)

BIG THANKS to the Ferreira family and to Amanda's parents for sharing the cabin with us again!