Snow Picnic

There's nothing like having a post in the "Edit" folder for weeks.  But here is a bit from Spring Break.  I'll be doing some more catch ups soon.

We are enjoying Spring Break up here in the Arctic.  It has been mostly cold but warming up.  It is funny how excited we all get when we see water in the street.  "The snow is melting!!!"

We even turned the melting into a family affair.  Greg busted out his rock hammer and we worked on clearing the storm drains so the water had a place to go.  (I have to say a rock hammer has proved to be a very handy tool many a time in our family.)  Otherwise, the streets just keep melting and freezing every night.  It probably doesn't affect everybody on our block, but the bottom left picture is where we cross the street to go to church and all that wet and slippery ice isn't good for the kids nor their big Mama!

It was amazing how much fun it was.  The kids splashed the puddles and excitedly watched the water rushing down the drain.  It was like we had our own homemade river.

With all the melting, I thought we had better get out and enjoy the snow before it was gone.  Ha, ha, on us because it has since snowed several more times.  I decided we wanted to go out sledding.   I invited as many people who wanted to come along and we had a pretty good turn out.  Take a look! 



Well technically I didn't do too much sledding and not just because I'm pregnant (because honestly the hill was pretty wimpy) but Tati has decided she hates sledding and would much rather "roll" down the hill and while Gavin enjoys going down the hill initially, he hates having to walk up (who doesn't?) and he turns pretty needy with walking in the snow. So after I snuck in a few slow runs down the bump of a hill, I just basically helped him eat and go back and forth playing in the car.

After we ate our snacks, we just chilled with our friends and let the sun warm our faces.  It felt great to get out and do something fun with the kids and some of our friends.

Also, since the snow was finally melting, it transformed into perfect snowman snow.  The girls had tried several other times this Winter but the snow was always really too powdery and the balls would disintegrate.  So here they are as proud builders.  To everybody's shock, they didn't name the snow ladies or snow girls.  Since we don't know if we'll be living where there even is snow next Winter, I'm glad they had a chance to get the snow man making thrill this year.