More Snow

We received more snow overnight.

This time it didn't stick to the roads.

It barely dusted the soccer fields in front of school.

I think the kids were a little disappointed they still had to go to school.

Goodbye Snow

This is the last of our snow that hung out for two weeks.  It is the last of the snow on our entire street.  It was piled up a couple feet high two weeks ago after I shoveled the driveway clean. 

It was gone by the afternoon when we hit 70 outside.

Snow - Day Three

 The snow isn't going anywhere.  The sun hasn't been out and it is still freezing cold outside!

Today is the first day that the daycare opened up and the kids were thrilled to go.  They didn't open until 10am.  Owen was in my office every 20 minutes this morning asking how much longer until I could take them in.  I think they were stir crazy after being stuck at home and were ready to see friends again.

Snow Day!

This was the second snow day off from school and the roads were slowly SLOWLY becoming driveable.  For big trucks.  Todd's flight to Orlando was canceled yesterday, but he was able to safely make it to the airport this morning.  And his flight ended up being one of the few that made it off the ground.

The kids were staying home and playing nicely together while I worked.  When one of my mid-day conference calls got canceled, I invited us out with neighbors to go sledding.  While the grown-ups determined the best place to go sledding, the kids played in the snow.

The kids had never been sledding before.  Which also meant we had no sleds and tried using our swimming kick boards to ride down the hills.

Owen found that sliding down on his tummy in his winter coat was just as effective and didn't require waiting or sharing.

Chloe didn't have a problem using the little kickboard and was just thrilled to be out playing in the snow with tons of other kids.

I loved being at the bottom of the hill because I got to see the happiest faces coming down!

I couldn't believe it when Owen tried standing up on the kickboard like he was surfing.

He made it down most of the hill before he fell.  I was impressed!

Owen's good friend Preston who lives across the street had a blast going down the hill.  We were thankful he had extra sleds to share.

One of the other adults had brought a real surfboard.  It was used plenty as a sled with multiple kids piling on top of an adult's back.  Chloe piled on top of two other kids.

When they hit a bump half way down, she started to fly off.

And ended up on the side.

Chloe stood up, brushing off the snow and had a grin plastered on her face from one ear to the other.

She had rosy cheeks, but had enough layers on to keep her from complaining about the cold.

She had so much fun going down the hill over and over.  And over.

After an hour inside our neighborhood, we drove over to the middle school for a hill that was about 180 feet tall/long.  Owen was thrilled to go down it and showed no fear.

Chloe was waiting for an adult to ride down with her.

She ended up hanging onto the back of Ms. April with her tutu trailing out behind her.

She also tried going down the big hill on an innertube, but it didn't move that fast.  I was thankful, because it was hard standing at the bottom of this big hill and watching the kids come down super fast.

Did I mention I rode on a sled down the hill, hanging on terrified to the back of another eight year old?  I was scared to death of wiping out and ruining my camera or breaking a leg.  It was super fast!

We didn't stay as long at this hill.  Barely 20 minutes had passed before Owen asked to go because his clothes, socks and shoes were all soaked and he was freezing cold.  Poor boy!  We sat inside another person's car and blasted the heat until the others were ready to go back.  This was such a fun break from work for me and a total blast for the kids to go out sledding for the first time!!!

And Even More Snow

By morning, we had six inches of snow on the ground.

Even though school was canceled, we were up early and walking around the neighborhood calling for Jez.

The snow was so beautiful.  Everything was white and clean.

It must have been a crazy snowstorm while we were sleeping.  Snow blew everywhere, even inside our back porch and onto the feet of our owl.

The snow clung to our hanging lanterns.

And it covered and blew into the cat carrier we left outside the front door in case Jezzie wandered back.

The snow even stuck to the tops of the bricks that form our retaining wall in the backyard.

We received a call from our neighbor six houses down around 9:30am that he thought Jezzie had been hiding under his car in the driveway.  We tracked her down and she was hiding in someone else's fenced in backyard.  She spent most of the day curled up in warm spots around the house.

We were so thankful we found Jezzie and hope that this made a lasting impression...if she tries to escape again, she'll be stuck out in the cold overnight and a big blizzard will blow through ;)

Jez stuck inside the house without any interest of venturing out to the backyard for the next two days.

More Snow

By dinner time, we realized that Jezzie had been missing since probably lunch time.  We each took turns walking around our neighborhood calling for her, but she didn't come.  By bedtime, we had three inches of snow.

Even our street was covered under a thick blanket of snow.

Day After Christmas Fun

The day after Christmas was a relaxed day.  The kids played with their new toys.  We played Parcheesi together for the first time.

Chloe liked Parcheesi better than her brother, who abandoned us half way through and then came back to tell us how we should each be moving our pieces to block the others.  :)

Later, we took Dylan on a walk up to the tennis courts to run around.

We stopped at the bottom of our street so the kids could climb up on top of a ginormous snow ball people had made the day before.

The kids were excited to get up to the courts as small snow flurries fell on us.

Owen is all about cartwheels lately.

I had so much fun taking pictures of Todd and the kids running with Dylan.  So many big smiles.

I think even Dylan was smiling.

The guys took a break to sit down and rest.

Chloe loved on Dylan.

Owen danced around like a siller.

And as it started to snow harder, Chloe tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

Even Dylan got worn out and needed to take a rest.  He didn't get much of a rest as the snow fell harder and harder, which helped us decide that it might be time to go back home.

Someone was friendly and left a message on the hill below the tennis courts for us.  :)

I liked watching Chloe holding her Daddy's hand as we walked home.