Spring?

Although we've had a couple of great days of skiing in the past couple weeks, down in the city it's starting to feel distinctly like spring. Flowers are blooming everywhere, temps have been pushing 60 degrees the last few days, and it's been unseasonably sunny. At least El Niño is good for something (it certainly hasn't made for a great ski season across much of the west).

Just to make all you snowed-in Midwesterners jealous, I posted a few pictures I took while walking around my neighborhood today.

Anya's brother Neil came to visit us last weekend; he was in the States anyway and stopped by for a few days. It's always great to see him - I think we showed him a good time in Seattle.

We've been watching quite a bit of the Winter Olympics coverage since it's practically in our back yard. While event tickets are a complete ripoff, we have been contemplating trying to go to some of the myriad of free cultural festivities going on in Vancouver. While it's hard to argue with the spirit of the Olympic games, the prospect of snarled traffic at the boarder, the long series of organizational gaffes, and, most of all, the overt commercialization of it all makes me question the whole thing. Maybe we'll just go skiing instead.