It was a fairyland here yesterday morning. If I had been more on the ball, I would have gotten out of the house early and taken some stunning photographs. As it was, I was diverted from that, for a wonderful reason.

While it was snowing the day and evening before, my youngest daughter and her team were in the FIRST Lego League robotics competition. They were delighted to come in fourth place out of 30, and on the strength of their presentation won a “golden ticket” to the State Championship next weekend. This is an absolutely awesome job for a rookie team. Last night she was so tired she crashed immediately after her stimulating day, so it wasn’t until yesterday morning, when the snow and ice were glimmering on the trees that I got the enthusiastic full report of the event. This is when I learned that they were within 20 seconds of first place! I also learned that when returning to the car in the snow afterwards, a team member slipped and fell, dropping the winning presentation, which careened into a puddle and was ruined. (So today my daughter is helping recreate it with some improvements.)

I had my priorities so straight basking in her glory, that I was unprepared for the beauty of the crystalline world outside! It was sparkling gorgeous. Since I was too late to photograph it, these pictures were taken from the car window on the way to church. (We call that kind of photography “a drive by shooting.”) You can see in the first one below it was starting to melt… These photos are not as good as I could have done in capturing the ephemeral, temporal beauty of the world outside yesterday morning, but under the circumstances, I can live with that.

May you, too, have a sparkling day, overflowing with good.