snow

The following has been the routine since roughly mid-December.

1. Wake up in the morning, look out the window, see that it's snowed.



2. Try and figure out how deep it is to decide if we need to wear ski pants and/or boots to take the dogs out. Anything under 2 inches is sweats and an old pair of sneakers.



3. Feed the hyperactive dogs, take them out. Curse the fact that you forgot to wear socks and get snow on your bare ankles. Curse the dogs for always having to go in the deepest part of the yard.



4. Look at the driveway. Depending on how much accumulation there is on the driveway, either plow or not plow at this time. How hard it's snowing doesn't matter. Remember the blizzard when there was 2 feet of snow on the driveway and begging the neighbor to use his ATV plow to do it. Vow to never let 2 feet of snow accumulate on the driveway again.



5. If outside plowing/shoveling, yell to all the other neighbors doing the same thing. Strike up various conversations with them. Watch the kids play in the all the snow piles on your lawn, sometimes making them fall on your nicely shoveled driveway. Realize it doesn't matter since the snow just started coming down harder and you'll have to plow again in a few hours.



6. Join the club and help the kids make snow jumps and little hills. Watch how easily amused they are.



7. Realize you're still a kid and join in the sledding.



8. Repeat the process every few hours until it finally stops snowing.



9. Over the next few days, watch the snow start melting, and breathe a sigh of relief you don't have to shovel again. Each morning try to convince the dogs to NOT go to the bathroom in the deepest part of the yard like they enjoy doing.
10. 5 days later, watch the weather report where they once again predict snow.
11. Go to 1 and repeat the cycle

AND WE LOVE IT!!!!

Well, if you've watched any sort of news today, no matter where you are, you've probably heard about the big blizzard that hit the Denver area today. With nowhere to go, and no place important to be, it's been a pretty fun day actually for me. Probably not for the people stranded at the airport though.

All the schools were closed today (as well as tomorrow), so I had several neighborhood kids over this morning to watch movies (High School Musical, and Elf), and play Xbox 360. Kids get so restless! I guess I was the same way as a kid, but I swear towards the end of Elf they all wanted to finish it, but were extraordinarily fidgety. I sent them home for lunch, then went next door since Karyl was home (school teacher), and we made the dough for sugar cookies. Then we decided the snow was deep enough, so off into our backyard it was to play with the snow puppies. Loki and Odin were soooo happy to have so many friends play with them, they didn't know which way to turn. We buried Loki in the snow up to his neck, and threw the football for them and watched them dig and act like little bunny rabbits jumping up and down in the snow drifts.

Then it was an hour of silence as they went off to build a snow fort, then back to Karyl's to finish the sugar cookies, and then just general hanging out the rest of the afternoon/evening until it was dinnertime. Cathy brought over some chili she had made, and we had that, sugar cookies, cheese and crackers, and beer.

We gave up trying to plow the driveway - the drifts were too deep and even now it's still coming down like mad. Brian tried to do his and our driveway with his 4x4, but it got snowed over too fast, so he decided to wait as well.

No pictures yet - with all the blowing snow, I can just imagine ruining Leif's camera and he definitely wouldn't be too happy. I'll get some for sure tomorrow - it's supposed to stop snowing around noon. :)