snowstorm!

We are having a record-breaking winter around here. October was incredibly rainy; December and January have had multiple snow and ice storms. We've already missed 6 days of school for weather and there's clearly more to come this week. But today was something special - over a foot of snow fell overnight and we woke up to a true winter wonderland. Huge drifts of puffy snow everywhere. I put on my snowshoes and took the kids out at 8 am to explore. They tromped in snowshoes for a bit and we tried sledding at the school field. It was so deep and thick that it was actually hard to get going until we built up a track.

 

 

 

The neighborhood came out to work together on clearing our street - people started by shoveling their own driveways and then we made a path wide enough for one car down the street. (It's a private road, so it doesn't get plowed by the city or the homeowners association.) It took them hours - five hours? - to make it up to Miller. I went out for an hour or so to help shovel but my right arm gave out.

Sebastian found his friend Wyatt and the two of them embarked on an epic hike around the neighborhood - down the trail to the pond, sledding near there, over to check out Engleman, back up to sled a few times down Bartholomew, up the trail behind the school, and then playing at the field. They were out for a couple of hours together and only returned when they were tired and hungry, which I loved. Liesl requested that we try to find her friend Nora for some snow play, so we tromped down there. There were people sledding along the plowed road and we joined in the fun - first together, and then I walked even higher up and went on a few steep, fast, long runs by myself. I left Liesl to play at Nora's house and walked back home along the trails - it was beautiful in the forest.

 Steve met up with me while I was on my way home and came to join me in the forest.

 Sebastian tried to snowboard down some steep hills, taking some good falls into the powder.

We picked Liesl up at 2:30 and Nora came back to our house to play for a bit - they played in the snow all the way home, giggling the whole time about this and that and nothing - and then played family and babies in L's room for a couple hours.

I baked morning glory muffins and an orange-scented tea cake, and braised a pork shoulder for dinner (in my new giant dutch oven!). Good food for a snow day.