Snow Days in Colorado

Sledding Day
Above Ouray

This was the week after Christmas, before Dominic had to go back to the seminary and Dan had to go back to work...  I stayed home for this field trip and let them bond, while I took the chance to clean the  Christmas-traumatized house (with noone there to immediately destroy it behind me)...

Here's a shot of the "amphitheater" above the tiny town of Ouray, Colorado.  The sledding gang actually headed to the hills behind the camera person, west of this shot...

Up near these craggy peaks.

So, it seems the gang (Dominic, Michelle, Theresa, Cathy, Anna,
Gabe,  William, and their Dad)  found an unused, uncleared road, near Box Canyon Falls....

"It was so much fun, Mommy!"  "It was perfectly safe, Mom!"  "It was a good spot, dear. Nothing to worry about."
Uhuh.

But, the facts of the field trip came out later, when they admitted it was probably a good thing I didn't go or they'd have ended up sledding on a lump at the playground.  As the details (and the pictures) downloaded, I learned that, for one thing,  there was a street with some traffic on it at the bottom of the hill.  See Dan waaaaay down there?  It was his job to stop the sled as it came flying down toward the road.  Brave man.  Nut.

And there was a steep drop off on one side with a frozen creek down at the bottom of it.  

But, it was all good, Mom!  See?  We made it out alive!
(See the snow-encrusted eyelashes?!  Crazy people!)

And now for your consideration, a wintery poem:

Snowball

by Shel Silverstein

I made myself a snow ball as perfect as could be.
I thought I'd keep it as a pet and let it sleep with me.
I made it some pajamas and a pillow for it's head.
Then, last night it ran away.
But first -- it wet the bed.

(Heehee!)  Happy snow days, friends!
(This poem was 'specially for you, William and Gabe...)

Where we've been and gone and what we've done...

So, we had a "field trip day" yesterday.  We packed a cooler, grabbed our coats, gloves, and boots and headed up to the mountains, where we stopped at our favorite playground in Georgetown. 

Here's the sandbox.

Where Theresa and William are trying to dig in the half-frozen sand...

The gazebo..

The lunch.

Michelle.

Theresa.

Cathy.

Anna.

Gabe.

William.

Then we hopped back in the car after everyone's noses were frozen and headed up to Breckenridge.

Where, as William says, "it's still Christmas."

And where the International Snow Sculpture Competition just took place last weekend.

Here are the kids in front of a bodacious dragon.

A bear we all particularly liked.

Some dancing notes.

A Geisha

 (who reminded us a little of Aunt Donna...)

(She's got that Welsh-Oriental look like you, Dons... We think she's pretty!)

A ten-foot tall violinist.

Two really nifty treefrogs.

And this amazingly intricate snow carving of deer and dancers,

 that we thought should have won first place.

But this one won.

Peace Out.

(That's for you, Nicole!)

Then, after we'd seen all the sculptures and toured the town museum for a little while -- when everyone was getting cold and tired and cranky again -- we loaded the troops back up in the car and headed down the valley...

Where we passed this sign in Frisco. 

(Check it out, Paul!)

And we passed some beautiful snow-capped mountains.

And some more.

(They're everywhere up there in the Rockies, you know.)

And after a bit, everyone was tired, but happy, and only a little bit cranky.

I think we only had to threaten to stop the car once.  Or twice maybe.

But it was a good day!  Especially since I got to have Dan along with me as a back-up referee.

When he didn't have his phone stuck to his ear.  Dear.

Just kidding.  He really wasn't on the phone all that long.  But, I have to ask the other wives out there...  Do you have rules about your husbands having their blackberries along on family outings or dates?

Almost Free Craft for a Winter's Evening...

Check out this Newspaper Basket tutorial at How About Orange!

White Pina Colada Slurpee Snow

Five to six inches of it here ~ lots more in the Denver area.

Wet, wet, wet snow. As soon as you step on it, it turns to water. It's easy to shovel away, but really, really heavy.

The kids call him "Alphonso." Don't ask me why; I don't know.

Snowing...

Woke up early this morning. Earrrrly. Like 5:30. A.M. I was having a strange dream about sneaking around in the woods chasing kidnappers and, I remember, even as I slept, hiding behind a tree, and thinking to myself, "Why am I here? I don't need to be here. I think I'll wake up." And so I did. Which is why I was up at 5:30... But, I digress.

As I started to say, I woke up very early, and came out to the computer to check my mail. (What else would one do at 5:30 in the morning, I ask you?) And, as I sat in front of the comfort of the glowing screen, I was roused from my trancelike state by the howling of the wind outside the window next to me.

So, I looked out.

And, behold, from out of the darkness, a blanket of snow whirled and whipped in the wind, blowing out of the big cedar tree in the yard, which was weighted down by a blanket of new snow.

I heard some clacking and clicking and bumping out on the patio. It was our yellow lab, Bella, playing with a frisbee out in the snow. She's crazy. She loves the stuff. She wouldn't come in out of the weather even if we wanted her to. Then, after a bit, my husband came whistling out of the bedroom, wearing a cozy brown sweater and dipped out some of the hot chocolate I'd started on the stove. A little while and the kids wandered down, one by one. Gabe first, then William. Then Theresa and Cathy, together, stumbled down, rubbing their eyes, and snuggled up on the couch. (Still haven't seen my sleepyheads, Michelle and Anna...) What a pleasant, wintery morning, I thought.

And then it hit me. It's not cold. I hadn't even known it was snowing until I heard it outside the window. The children are wandering around barefoot. Nobody is hunkered under blankets. My husband didn't start the day by building a fire in the wood stove. It's actually warm in our house.

For the ten plus years we've lived in this old farmhouse, we've weathered the winters almost like the pioneers. Since we had no central heat, we could really, truly associate with Laura and Mary Ingalls jumping out of the warm covers and hurrying as fast as possible to get dressed in the cold. We wouldn't think of walking around barefoot in the winter. On a morning like this one, everyone would have come down in heavy sweaters and socks and slippers, and then hunkered down with blankets waiting for the wood stove to warm things up.

But not this winter.

Ah, the beauty of central heat. I'm happy to report our new radiant heat system is working well.

However...

Even as I sit here typing, happily toasty and comfortable, I wonder if our little ones will be deprived of not having experienced life before-the-radiators. In the spirit of "all-things-being-relative," I'm sure they won't appreciate this winter warmth like the rest of us will. And, generally speaking, I can't help but wonder if we'll all be the less for not living the seasons, literally, as our ancestors did. For us here at the old homestead, summer and winter, especially, were always very distinct, marked by special rituals of survival that have been lost to Western Civilization. We worked to stay warm, and suffered in the heat. We stocked and cut cords of firewood for winter and slept by the opened screened windows, talking late into the summer night because it was too hot to sleep. There's a certain nostalgic beauty to it all, and I do believe there is a certain character and comaraderie built this way that has no substitute in the modern world. I hate to admit it, and I won't say it too loud or my husband will roll his eyes, but, I will miss the old days.

(Though I repeat, in thanksgiving and some disbelief still ~ that I am so glad to be warm this morning. It's hard to type with frozen fingers.)

For some snowy day indoor fun, whether or not it's snowing where you are, you might consider:

This site where you can build a virtual snowman,

This very cool snowman unit,

This way cool scientific snowman site that links to the weather in your city,

This virtual snowflake maker,

This great 3-D snowflake tutorial,

These embroidery snowflakes,

These origami snowflakes,

These old fashioned victorian paper snowflakes.

Jinxed or Blessed?

Laura just wrote a post about how she just really doesn't like the snow, and it got me to thinking.

I definitely understand not liking the snow. I'm not sure I like it. But then, I'm not so sure I don't, either. I'm usually pretty decisive about things... But, I'm really conflicted abou this snow thing. I needed to contemplate it and maybe post on it... (Am I the only one who thinks better in print?)

But, seriously, it's too important a subject for a snap judgement, right? Weather, after all, is a divine creation!

So, thinking out loud here (so to speak). I am considering snow.

I have very few childhood experiences with snowfall for it to have made an early impression on me one way or another. I grew up in the south, and it was a very rare occurrence, which may have lent it an air of the unattainable. But, it was a generally positive thing, if a little mysterious.


By the time our family moved to Colorado, I was in my mid teens and snow meant one of two things: 1) a possible snow day, free from school, or 2) a chance to socialize, meeting up with friends to go ice skating or sledding or whatever. So, it had nice connotations, but ones that didn't really relate to the snow, itself.

By the time I was in college, it was a nuisance because it kept me from doing things I may have wanted to do. And, then, by the time I was married with children, it became the cause of messes to be cleaned up, snowball fights to be refereed, and boots, hats, and mittens to be kept track of. And mud. We have a lot of mud here where we live.

Ugh.

But, still... Even with all that said,
* I love to watch the scenery outside my windows fill up with crisp clean snow,
* I love the silence of it filling up the landscape when nothing else in my world is quiet,
* I love the sound of its squeaky crunching under my boots when I go outside,
*and I love to look up into the sky and see the millions and trillions of flakes falling from ~ where?
* The Hand of God...

But, I don't particularly like to play in it.
* Though I'm a Coloradan, I'm not a skiier.
* I might like to go sledding if I didn't have the cold fingers and noses of toddlers to contend with ~ but by the time little cold noses and fingers are not an issue for me, I'll be too old to consider catapulting myself down an icy hill.
* I'm not afraid to drive on icy roads (though maybe I ought to be), but I do hate the mess it makes of my car, and entryway, and the kids' coats and boots....

These are all the thoughts that pelted around inside the landscape of my brain when I first started contemplating my real, deep down opinion of snow.
At first thought, and the last thought, I was still conflicted.

But, that was yesterday.

This is today...

The first thought I had when I saw it falling outside our window, in great big feathery flakes was:

Whoopee! Let's get some hot chocolate going, kids! Let's see who can be the first to find a matched pair of gloves!

So, yes, Laura, I guess I actually do like the snow.

*:o)

(But, ask me again how I feel about it right around the end of February...)

Parting Shots Before Lent Begins

My Colorado Kid, "It's-Not-Cold-Cathy" and barncat, Georgia
Girls ready to eat brownies and icecream (TV behind them soon to be turned off)
My last cup of coffee (at least until Sunday morning)

Not Pictured: My stiff upper lip...