Snow Daze

Inspired by a blog post about a snowfall in Dublin (and I'm sad to say I didn't bookmark the blog so I can't find it again), I wanted to write a few notes about the snow here in the Philly suburbs:

It doesn't snow much here or I should say it snows but doesn't stick. When we do have a "snow day" from school, it is usually due to ice rather than snow. Snow only causes delays.

It snowed all day on Tuesday so that by the time the kids came home from school, the lawn was actually covered with it.

The temperature hovered around 35 degrees Fahrenheit making the snow sticky and perfect for snow balls and snowmen. Not quite enough snow had fallen so the snowballs we made to build our snowman collected the grass, leaves and sticks under the snow. Our poor snowman was pretty dirty.

We imported snow from the backyard to polish him up. The kids named him My Buddy Billy and here he is in all his glory

We used frozen jalapeno peppers for the eyes, a carrot for the nose, and some frozen edamame for the mouth. He seemed very healthy until we turned our back on him and he lost his head. I wondered why he kept listing to starboard.

"At least we have a picture," my daughter said and the kids moved on to creating the Snow Drop Cafe which served snowballs, snow soup, and snow drinks all for the price of a snowball. No Sno-Cones however, because, as my daughter said, they aren't really made from snow.

It snowed all through the night and in the morning we had this:

A veritable winter wonderland. Not enough to stop school, just enough to delay it.

Growing up in Vermont, we had snow all the time. Battling the cold winters here in Philly with the ice and rain, I wonder how I stood the long winters in Vermont. And then it snows here, and I remember building snow forts, sledding, cross-country skiing, snowmen, snow angels, snow down the back, sugar on snow, laying on my back in the snow as if I was at a beach, finding and eating icicles.

But snow here doesn't last long enough to create such memories. It's supposed to be in the 40's by the weekend.
When the kids came home from school on Wednesday, they wanted to wait on homework and go outside and play. How could I say no? They'll always have homework.