So Much More Fun Than Ice Skating

As I mentioned yesterday, today was going to be the first day of ice skating sessions through the school for Quinn. Too bad the weather didn't cooperate. I guess I had heard that it was suppose to snow today, but I really didn't think anything of it. Even when Ginger said it was suppose to start snowing right around lunch (which is when the kids from the school would be car pooling out to the ice rink). I guess I realized how serious some people were taking it when I got to work and the parking lot had already been treated. And then around 9:30 I saw some light snow flurries and still didn't think anything of it. But then after working for about an hour I turned around and suddenly the outdoors was a winter wonderland.

So a tad later just after noon I got a phone call from Ginger. She was at the school, the ice skating trip had been canceled due to the increasing bad road conditions, and lots of the kids at the school were being dismissed early (some had left around 11). Ginger's never been fond of driving in the snow, and after seeing numerous accidents on the way to the school and that people were having trouble getting back up the hill that leads out of the neighborhood where the school is she was really concerned about driving home. I asked if she could take the back way out and she said that the people at the school had said that way was bad too. Growing up in the southern part of Virginia driving in the snow isn't that big of a deal for me. It's just something you do when it snows. So next thing you know I've volunteered to drive to the school and drive her and the kids home.




Now in Ginger's defense, the roads were in pretty bad condition around noon and the snow was still coming down pretty hard. And there were some accidents that I saw and the hill down to the school was pretty treacherous. In the other direction no one wanted to stop on the hill itself, so at the light there would be two cars, then nothing all the way down the hill, then a long line of cars at the bottom. On the way up the hill over to the side were a couple of vehicles that had tried to get up the hill and didn't make it. But I went really slow down it and didn't have a problem and got to the school and picked up Ginger and the kids. They had been playing out in the snow some before I got there and Ginger had taken some pictures of them playing out and you can see how hard the snow was coming down at this point (those are the two pictures up above).

I took the back way out of the neighborhood to avoid the hill, and while the roads were untreated with four of us in the wagon we had enough weight and traction that it wasn't a problem. Once we got back on the major roads we were fine (although the roads were still in pretty crappy condition, but easily drivable). We did have some slowdowns in our neighborhood, but that's only because the people in front of us obviously didn't know how to drive in the snow and were driving like five miles and hour.


After we got home it was time to head outdoors and enjoy the snow. I have to admit, I'm really glad Ginger wanted me to come get them from the school because otherwise I would have been trapped at work all day and missed spending a couple hours outside with the kids. And it was well worth any vacation time I'll have to burn to play outside with them. I had my camera out, but also was trying to hold an umbrella since the snow was still coming down pretty good and I wouldn't have been able to just have the camera out without some protection. And I would have been fine, but Catherine kept trying to hit me with snowballs.


I'll go ahead and apologize in advance. I'm going to throw up a ton of pictures. I'm still doing the photo manipulation on the laptop due to my computer's profile still not working properly, so some of the pictures have had the contrast overdone I think, but I can't really break out Gimp on the laptop (too slow and not enough memory). Anyway, sometimes the photos outside without the flash have the subjects too dark (I assume from the white meter overcompensating for the snow) so to lighten them up requires changing the contrast. I should have been taking photos of the kids using the flash from what I could tell. The few that had the flash looked pretty good (I just have a tendency to try and avoid the flash if I can help it and it looks like that came back and bit me in this instance).












We had a great time outside. The kids sledded for a while (somehow I missed out on my getting a turn). And Catherine went down by herself just fine this year. Although she claimed she was "scared" of doing it by herself, but once she started going down the hill a couple times she wasn't acting scared at all.




After sledding we moved to the front yard where there were snow angels and snowmen. The snow was perfect for snowmen. It was some of the best packing snow I've seen.








Quinn didn't really want to help with the snowmen, so I put him to work shoveling the driveway, which he turned into a game of creating a "road" (path) around the driveway (all of which meant later in the night I had to go out and shovel the driveway myself). Part of me was hoping that like last year we were going to get a freeze tonight and have the snow be covered in a thick layer of ice. But since it's like 2 am at this point and still a couple degrees above freezing maybe I don't think that's going to happen. Man, I guess that also means school won't be delayed tomorrow (which I was sort of hoping it would be). Guess whenever I do end up having to take the kids to school I'll have to have Ginger go along with me so I can get my car from the school and she can still have her car.




Might as well close out with a couple pictures of the finished snowmen.