Christmas With a Capital B-R-R-R

What do you do when you are together with family and the weather outside is so cold that you can't shovel the snow in shorts?  Why, you go swimming outside of course.  It is really a magical experience when the snow falls gently around and ice starts to form in your hair and the steam from the hot pools makes it hard to see more than ten feet. 

At Heise Hot Springs, about 30 miles from Idaho Falls, it was freezing cold as we hurried from the locker room to the pool--you know how it feels when your feet ache just touching the cold concrete, well it was just like that only colder with skiffs of snow at the edges of the pool deck. Even though the temperature in the main pool was 92 degrees, it still felt a little chilly when we jumped out of the 15 degree air. We learned a little trick: After swimming around for awhile, if you get out of the pool and stand at the edge of the pool with your arms outstretched for the count of twelve, when you jump back into the pool it feels nice and warm. (I think it works because by then your brain is as numb as your body.)

Beware of beautiful damsels daring you to stay out in the cold for the count of 100; and then beware of letting Bryan do the counting: 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 M i s s i s s i p p i. I couldn't believe how slow Bryan and Josh were. While there were dilly-dallying around standing in the cold for the count, I managed to jump in twice before they could even do once. And of course were the daredevils rewarded with hot apple pie or hot chocolate? No way! The reward was an ice cold DQ Blizzard (new definition of 'brain freeze).  'Who'd-a-figured? 

The second pool was at about 104 degrees and it was toasty. It felt s-o-o-o good to ease into the pool and just cook with the Cooks. Camille wisely stayed home with Tytan, but we missed them both. We wondered how Tytan would handle something as radical as swimming in the winter time.

We were lucky to have Mary Lee's active camera finger operating. She captured the event just right. It is amazing that the lens of the camera didn't fog up. (And it just isn't fair that Josh and Michelle are so doggone photogenic.)