Santa Claus was good to Mrs. GeoK, leaving an Olympus E-PL1 DSLR (with kit lens) under the tree, along with an electronic view finder and a 14-150mm superzoom lens. Now comes the challenging part…learning how to use it. Fortunately, the “auto” mode should provide a relatively seamless transition from the “point and shoot” cameras I’ve used in the past. And, even more fortunately, this is the same camera our Oldest GeoKid uses, so hopefully he’ll take pity on Mom and provide some mini-lessons and advice.

While waiting for more company to join us for Christmas dinner, we headed out for a relatively short walk in Canmore. Sure enough, the small waterfall on Three Sisters Creek is frozen solid, ‘though Youngest GeoK spotted a couple of patches of running water under the ice. He also had a great time sliding down a smaller drop, just upstream of Three Sisters Bridge. Enough water backed up in this area before things froze through that we were tempted to go back to get our ice skates!! But the need to return and prepare Christmas dinner outweighed this temptation, so that adventure will have to wait for some time in the New Year!