Snow!!!

It snowed last night and yesterday...school cancelled, of course. Five extra kids and a stranded house guest makes for a fun day. We bundled up and went out to the school yard to play. For 20 minutes. Now it took 15 minutes to get bundled up. Then almost 10 minutes to walk across the cul-de-sac to the school. 20 minutes later, it took 10 minutes to walk home and another 15 minutes to unbundled everyone. Then another 20 minutes of warming up and hot chocolate. So no hurry to repeat the experience.

Snow makes me miss my hometown. The beauty of fresh snow. The way it makes the world look new overnight. The sound of it under snow boots. The pleasure of riding a sled. The snowball wars, the snow forts, hiding a snowball to bring inside and shove in the freezer for later. What I don't miss...scrapping ice of car windows, piles of dirty snow on the side of the road, listening to studs on the roads, and always looking for gloves.

Growing up we usually had snow from Halloween to spring break. We only had 3 snow days in 10 years. Snow was the norm. You didn't stay home from school, you didn't even stay in from recess. The year we had 'snow days' there were 6ft snow drifts in the valley. The snow drifted up to the side of our house, and we could have sledded down the roof and drift. We would have tried too, but were sent to the sledding hill before we had a chance to try it out. We had a sledding hill 2 blocks from our house. We left as soon as we'd had breakfast to head to the hill. We'd come back for lunch. We'd beg to go sled on the 8th street hill. We'd head off to the college, where 8th street was the steepest hill in town. I don't think I've run across a hill that steep anywhere- maybe San Fransisco has them. The college students would pour water down it, and it'd have a good thick layer of ice. It was steep enough, you'd continue on for 2 blocks after the hill. It was amazing...truly amazing.

We lived next to a large city park. We'd build snow forts and have massive neighborhood snowball fights. We also grew up snowmobiling. On really good snow days, we'd be able to snowmobile through our neighborhood. Until someone got tired of the noise, and would threaten to call the cops.

We'd make snow ice-cream. I wish I had the recipe, although it was simple. We'd put a bowl out before we'd go to bed. We add vanilla, sugar, and cream, and stir well. It was more like a slushy than ice-cream, but it was good. I hear it might snow more- I should set out a few bowls. When you only get a couple inches of snow- you need lots of bowls. When you get six inches, you only need a couple. Activity for tomorrow- since I'm sure there will no school tomorrow either.

Good News- it's the third week of the month, which means an update on R and Er is coming.