Snowed In!

A week ago Saturday we went skiing and halfway through the day it started snowing. Within a few hours it had probably snowed six inches. We left and were surprised at how much snow was in town when we arrived home. Sunday morning we woke up and it was still snowing, big beautiful flakes.

Before we knew it we received a phone call that church had been cancelled. We spent the day digging out and playing in the snow. Then we went to Jason's parents and helped dig them out. It was such a great family day.

Monday brought more snow and NO SCHOOL! I let the three oldest kids invite friends over and spent the day keeping everyone fed. I volunteered to do all the driving since some of the parents didn't have good snow tires. It took me over an hour both ways to pick everyone up and drop them off because the roads were so bad. It was around 5 pm when I was driving everyone home and the light on the snow was just gorgeous. Where we live it is dark by 4:30 pm. I always look forward to December 21st because I know from that day forward we will gain a bit of light each day. I couldn't believe that it was 5:00 pm and still light. All the trees looked like big, shimmery marshamallows. I wish I would have had my camera with me.

Tuesday we ventured downtown to the Children's Museum. We just had to get out. We spent a good chunk of the day and had lunch as well. When we got home I couldn't get up our dirt road because the drifts were so bad. Luckily a nice neighbor plowed our road for us and within 30 minutes the county plow had showed up.

By Wednesday the snow days were getting old. Again we ventured out, this time to Chuck E. Cheese. We usually only go for a birthday a couple of times a year. Lily said it was the best day of her life. That night they announced that Thursday would be another snow day. By then I expected it. We were hit with another big storm Wednesday night and woke up to big drifts on our beautifully plowed road Thursday Morning. I braved piano lessons and Costco and was relieved to find that the roads were great once we got on the main streets.

Our family motto is to Embrace the Lake. This means that even if the water is cold we jump in and ski anyway. We have now expanded it to "Embrace the Snow." I have to admit that I loved all this white, fluffy stuff. It was so pretty and so fun to play in and it made for some great skiing. We had already planned to ski on Friday since it was a day off school due to semester break. We headed up to the mountains and had a great time skiing with friends on Friday.

I learned a valuable lesson last week. I used to pride myself on being spontaneous but with each kids I've become a little more scheduled. Now I rely on routine to keep us all sane. Last week I felt like we were floundering each day. The week would have been so much better if we would have known, even a few days in advance, that we would have an entire week off of school. Life is so much better when i take a few minutes each Sunday night to plan our week. I wonder how much of my life I have spent feeling out of sorts due to poor planning.

This morning the kids went back to school and I'm feeling back on track. Hooray for routines!