Fantasy VS. Reality

Having spent my entire life in Oregon,I fear I greatly romanticized snow. I spent my childhood dreaming of that elusive, picturesque white Christmas. What snow we did get was always way too little and short lived. I wanted more! Enough to build an igloo and miss school for a month! This last week I have been "treated" to the biggest snowstorm of my life. The kids missed almost a complete week of school, and we have over a foot of the white stuff. Let me just say, snow has almost completely lost it's charm for me. The kids are even tired of it, something I thought would never happen. But, we've been trying to make the most of it.

We've built snow forts.



We've kicked our brother's forts when they wouldn't let us help.

And cried when our brothers pushed us over.

As much as I'm growing to hate snow, it sure is pretty.

The snow became much less fun once there was a layer of ice on it.

Poor Buster has been so bewildered. He just looked pathetic trying to walk around the backyard, and breaking through the ice at every step. It was very hard for him to locate the right spot to do his business.

The icicles have been impressive though.

This weekend we took a very ill fated trek through the snow. Paul had the "brilliant" idea that we should WALK down to return the movies we rented. What is normally a quick, couple minute drive, became a two hour odyssey through very deep snow. Think "Donner party". We very nearly had to leave a kid or two by the side of the road. Poor Paul had it really rough, as he ended up carrying Grayson and Rowan for long stretches of time. They just weren't going to make it. My pep talk about how the pioneers walked all day long through snow, without all of the nice snow clothes that we have, was not appreciated. This was not one of our better ideas, and my muscles are letting me know it.


The only really good thing about the snow is that it makes the kids so tired that they curl up into little cocoons and go to sleep.