Snow Day!

Well, living in New England has certainly expanded my experiences with snow by about 10 fold.  Kyle and I have slowly acquired things like snow shovels, fleece-lined hats, water proof gloves, and we buy the industrial size cans of hot chocolate (I kid you not, on the side of the can it says "great for restaurants and day cares!").  

After a few days, snow gets old.  But, I still get excited about snow days...they're like surprise holidays, and, well, it's fun!  So, as we got about 18 inches of snow on our street today - school was rightly cancelled.  We're out tomorrow too....which is kind of exciting as well. :)

But, on to our day. 

I already blogged about our morning making snow ice cream.  After all of that fun was done, we got ready to go outside. 

I kinda love seeing Abby in her snow pants.  

We went outside to check things out.  Abby was excited, but tentative (rightly so).

My car 1/2 way through the day.  I have an awesome husband who spent nearly an hour shoveling it for me.  Then?  Then he did it again tonight.  ....That was before we knew I had tomorrow off, but man, he didn't even complain about it.  Lucky girl, I am. 

I'll admit I felt like a little kid again frolicking around in the snow that came up past my knees. 

This is the best I could get of Abby on our first trip outside today.  She was not exactly amused when we stuck her, waist deep, in the snow.  She couldn't walk, move, wiggle, or even really fall.  She found it...frustrating.

Kyle, on the other hand, decided to dive right in. 

home sweet home

We decided to take a walk.  But, at this point, the street had not been plowed and Abby was having a really hard time walking.  Kyle picked her up, but when they got a little ways down, he turned around.  She flipped out.  She didn't want to turn around - but she didn't want to walk either.  She ended up just working herself up into a tizzy and *screaming* and crying as loud as she could until I could get her back upstairs.  Now...screaming toddlers are bad enough - but when you're outside with half a dozen neighbors trying to shovel and there's not another sound in the air...it was almost more than I could deal with.

trying a walk with daddy.

We let Abby eat lunch and take a nap (two things that surely contributed to her melt down) and decided to head out again after she was fed and rested.  This trip was much much better. 

our back deck after being shoveled. 

Abby being a big helper!

our street, after it had been plowed.  heh.

I tried to capture this snowflake on my sleeve.

me and my happy abbykat

I love the way the freshly plowed sidewalks look

tree pic

We ended up walking all over the neighborhood and had a really good time.  We passed a dad and his 6-year old at one point and the little girl ran up to Abby and asked "You want to play with me?"  I told her Abby was kind of small to be sliding down the hill (turned slide by the 6-year old)...but Abby, to my surprise, answered "yes" before I could get in the way.  So, instead, I helped Abby slide down a snow slide with another little girl for a while and she had a lot of fun doing that.  :)

Eventually, I couldn't feel my toes and Abby's nose was running - so we convinced her to head back towards home with the promise of hot chocolate.  A promise that she held me to.  As soon as she got upstairs, she said "Ok.  Hot chocolate now?"  And of course she got some.

Kyle stayed outside a while longer and worked on my car and the driveway a bit.  When we all got in, we sat down to a yummy dinner of pot roast that we've been smelling all day.  After dinner, it was time for Abby's bath, books, and bed.

All in all, it was a nice day.  Low key, but full of stuff at the same time.  We got a lot of snow.  Kyle and I were trying to decide if we've had this much snow since we lived here or not.  We couldn't remember.  It seems like our first year here may have been close.  But, I kinda think this is the biggest snow we've had.  And, well, it was fun!

Abby is already growing up in a different reality than Kyle or I did.  She knows what a snow plow is.  She owns snow pants.  She thinks you should be able to make a snow man anytime you'd like.  It's so much fun watching her learn this stuff. :)

Anyway.  That's enough for now.  For everyone else out in this stuff - stay warm, dry, and safe...may your hot chocolate never run out and your neighbor shovel your walk for you. ;)