Snow Day

February 2009

After waiting a few months for us to collect some snow "gear" and for a good snow to come in the mountains nearby, we got to take our much-anticipated snow trip. Living in Fresno we don't encounter snow, well, ever at our house, so it was kind of a big excursion to go visit for a few hours. I found some good deals on snow pants and boots on ebay for the kids and Kevin and I had our old stuff from when we lived in Utah...yes you all can laugh who live in the snow, but hey, they don't even sell snow-appropriate clothes around here! We can't just walk into Target like the rest of you and buy what we need!

So the day finally came: we had all our warm clothes together, it snowed on a Friday and was a beautiful clear day on Saturday. Perfect. We packed up some lunch and headed up the road into the Sierras fo about an hour and decided on the first snowy place we found - our friend's cabin! They weren't there, but the long driveway had about 6-8 inches of snow, just enough for a little sled track and some deeper snow in the back where Emily could make her first snow angel. This was really Emily's first time ever to play in the snow, so she was really excited.

She especially liked to eat the snow - she knew not to eat anything yellow!

I was the one with the camera the whole time, so I am not in any pictures, but I was there!

Here's Emily making her first (and only) snow angel.

Allison didn't have any boots so we tried to wrap her feet in plastic bags to keep them dry...doesn't she remind you of the kid in that movie "Christmas Story"? She wasn't quite sure what to think of the snow. She tried to touch it a few times but of course her hands were all covered in her mittens. She loved wearing those mittens, by the way.

We got a few good sled runs in. The driveway wasn't very steep so it was just the right spot for Allison to have a go at it. We previously tried a few spots that were a bit steeper, but I had to sit at the bottom and catch Emily before she went flying all the way down the mountain. We weren't able to make a snowman (probably what Emily was most looking forward to doing) because the snow was too powdery, but after about an hour we did get into a little snowball fight which ended in a mis-aimed snowball to Emily's face from dad and a bunch of tears and screaming about being cold. So we took our "lunch break" in the car and just headed back home. So we spent a total of several weeks getting ready, at least two hours driving, and about 80 minutes actually playing in the snow. But it was fun. Now we are going to have to wait until we get more snow next year to do it again!