Snow Day!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

Mimi woke up, hungry, at 5:50 this morning. As I stumbled out of bed to fetch her, before she awakened the rest of the kids, I noticed the windows were filled with the strange, peach-colored glow that means snow is falling. I vaguely remembered seeing the same peach glow at Mimi's earlier feeding at 1:15 (she is feeling better, and so making up for missed meals), but hadn't been awake enough to care.

Before I had gone to bed the night before, the snowstorm was forecasted to turn to rain around midnight. The light outside hinted at a different outcome. After satisfying my baby's appetite, and returning her to her crib, I crept upstairs to peek out the kitchen window.

This is what I saw:

Yes, this is a picture of my garbage cans. You are jealous of my classiness.

Holy Cow! The ground was thickly blanketed in white, and every object was covered in a ton of snow. Completely surprised, I spent several minutes just staring, and then went downstairs to wake Bradley. (I wanted to share the wonder with him, even though he was peacefully sleeping, because I'm generous like that.) We marveled together for a while, and then started considering what this much snow meant for the morning's tasks. And it was still coming down!

Bradley decided to go up to the church and snow-blow the sidewalks around the ward building. It's not our ward's turn for this job, but it hadn't been done the day before, and the church is in our neighborhood. I decided to get dressed and shovel our walks before it was time to get the kids up and going.

I didn't realize what a job I was letting myself in for. The snow came up to my kneecaps, and it was wet and heavy. Everything was liberally coated in white--fences, cars, roofs, railings, trees. Several times I heard a cracking sound from across the street in the park, and once I turned just in time to see a large tree branch falling from one of the big evergreens. (Later, Zee watched, from our front window, when what seemed like half the tree came crashing down.)

Poor tree!

We live on a little tiny lot, but it took me more than an hour to shovel our walks and small driveway. By the time I was done, my back, legs, and wrists were aching. More disappointing than my general state of weakness, however, was the fact that an additional inch of snow had fallen while I was shoveling, and had covered everything I had done.

A mockery of all my work

I reentered the house to find my children awake and raring to go. Today was the last day of school before Christmas break, and all three school-aged kids were very excited about the parties, treats, and giving their teachers gifts. Calling for Zee and Em to hurry to get dressed, I pulled Gee on my lap for a quick snuggle while I checked the news reports for school closure reports. I thought that 12+ inches of snow overnight might be cause for a snow day, or at the very least a late start, but, being from Las Vegas, I never know what to expect.

The first bit of information I found reported that our school district had canceled bus service for the day. Parents could still take their children to school, but we were urged to use caution in traveling. Shortly after reading this, Gee's bus driver called to tell us they weren't coming. No problem, I could just take Gee to school today. He and I decided this was a good idea just as I clicked over to another website that announced that our district had just decided to completely cancel school for the day. Snow day! (Apparently the first snow day for our district in at least 20 years, possibly more.)

My children greeted this news with mixed emotions. Gee was excessively sad for a short time, Em was slightly sad for a little while, and Zee was sad not at all. Sugar cookies for breakfast, however, resolved most of the sorrow.

After sending Bradley off to work (and can I just send out a hearty "thank you" to our public bus system? No driving though the slippery dangerous roads for him!), we settled down for our very first snow day. Em was concerned about Santa Claus, and I reassured her that the weather was supposed to be good on Christmas, and anyway Santa flies through much worse storms than this one all the time. Gee was concerned about the amount of snow on the roof, and I reassured him that our roof was very strong.

Of course, then I walked by the kitchen window and caught a glimpse of this:

Good-bye, shed. (Sniff!)

Wow. I hadn't even thought to worry about the roof of the shed. Guess I know what we'll be spending on our spring yard money on this year. I was sort of hoping for a new patio.

When I saw it, I panicked at first, and frantically tried to reach Bradley at work. When I couldn't reach him, I thought about calling home teachers, or my father-in-law...to ask them what, exactly? When I reached that point in my train of thought, I calmed down. What, exactly, did I want someone to do? It is (and will be) a huge pain, yes, but not an emergency. And, really, what are you going to do but laugh, and be grateful it wasn't a tree branch on your roof or electrical lines?

So we made the most of our day, playing inside and out. Gee especially enjoyed the outside. Either he doesn't feel the cold as much (fine), or he can't feel the cold as much (not as fine), because he was the first one out and the last to want to come in. We wallowed in the deep snow, building "forts" and "cars", throwing snowballs and making snow angels, pretending to be "stuck" and gently pushing each other down, and of course we constructed a beautiful, slightly lost snowman, who seems to be looking for the beach rather than the ski slopes.

Our confused snowman

The snow didn't let up until around 1pm, and we have more rain/snow in our future. It's hard to imagine a better way to welcome winter, though, than +14 inches of snow on our heads. Even if it did take out our shed.

Measuring the snow on the van