Cold, Wet Adventure

Two weekends ago, a crazy little thing called snow happened to the Pacific Northwest. Saturday night, after we tucked the kids into their warm beds, we peeked out the window to the majestic sight of white cloud-like specs falling softly to the earth. In rare fashion, instead of melting upon impact with the ground, they clung to it and began to stack like miniature white acrobatic men standing upon each other's shoulders.

I love the look of a snow-blanketed city, especially at night. The snow appears to glow under the crisp light of streetlights. And everywhere the white particles are reflecting light softly into the air. I'm pretty sure there is nothing more peaceful (that is, until morning comes and cars are honking and clunking into each other while loud snow plows beep their way down the main roads).

Jacob was so happy to wake up to crisp, untouched snow and excitedly plodded his way through the yard, marveling at the fresh new tracks behind him. Ryan was not so thrilled. But I managed to get a few smiles out of him.

Snowball! (Ryan is content with his soccer ball, thank you very much)

We tried to make snow angels. But it looked much more fun that it actually was. Brrrr.

"I'll just stand here and watch and wait patiently for someone to take me back inside."

This ended up being our Valentine's Day card.

In a moment of ambition, I agreed to take both kids for a walk down the street to go sledding. Even though we hadn't used Jacob's penguin slide last year, he reminded me multiple times that it existed somewhere int he dark recesses of our creepy basement. That kid has the craziest memory. The other day, he called my cell phone from his grandma's house- he had my phone number memorized even though I have no memory of every telling him what it is!

Ryan, who had already expressed great displeasure in the snow, was really confused about what was going on and just wanted his mom to lift him as far away from the cold, wet intruder.

"Down (aka: "up") mommy!"

Jacob got a few good sledding runs in before he decided it was too cold. Here in the Seattle area we are so unprepared for snow. The only gloves Jacob has are souvenir knitted mittens from Canada. They were wet within minutes. And forget snow pants. Unless, we are talking literally, then yes, Jacob's jeans were so covered in melted snow that they very well could have been called snow pants.

When you're sledding you simply don't have any time to practice proper social etiquette, such as making sure your butt crack is fully covered.

Obligatory snow photo. "See, we have fun sometimes... or we're just really good at faking it for fractions of a second at a time."

"Can I just go home already?"

We made a very hearty effort at snow play. But after about 15 minutes, we were back in side sipping our hot coa-coa and warming our butt cracks on the heater vents. Probably the best part about sledding is coming inside to get warm.