Posted originally at www.toddp.com with photos.

Last night Todd, Ashley, a bunch of NCS students, my husband John and I all convened at the Saranac Lake Ice Palace. What a magical place! Magical is a trite word to describe a three-storey glimmering translucent witty frozen artistic sculptural architectural community marvel. I can speak only for myself, and I was suffused with joy. John gloried over discovering a tiny fish frozen in a block of ice the size of a Coleman cooler, and we all guffawed when someone pointed out the large words and arrow, writ in ice: FISH ---->

The ice could have been resin, it was so perfectly clear in spots, but the humid cold was proof of ice. Ah, how lovely.

You can check it out at http://www.saranaclake.com/carny.shtml Scroll down mid-page to see a slide show of construction.

Our solid H20 experience was preceded by a cozy hour in front of Mark's fireplace drinking hot cocoa and telling tall tales, and earlier in the afternoon a feast of kitchen-sink lasagna at John and my house, and the afternoon kicked off with Todd performing exploratory surgery on John and my computer network. As it turns out, shoelaces are not such effective UBS connectors.

I should probably post the above story in my own weblog but Todd has more readers and he hasn't told his own ice palace story yet, so let this be his introduction.

And today is a glorious, sunny Sunday!