Gracies 1st Snow Day - March 2nd, 2009

Our Snow day in March

Small little cottage, whole lot of snow, big yard. That says snowball fight, snowmen, snow icecream, and tons of fun and frolic right?


Gracie says no




Well in early March we got a decent snow day for us Texas transplants to Virginia. It started snowing Sunday afternoon around 3pm, and didn't stop until late Monday night. I took Monday off and we played football in the snow with Garrett and Bronwyn, drank a few dozen gallons of coffee, hot tea, and hot chocolate, read books, played with Gracie, and staring at the snow. We tried numerous times to get Gracie out in it, but for some reason she was petrified of the snow, of being in it, being carried across it, and everything in between.

So, as it was all around us as you can see, we had a lot of crying this day. But we overcame it. Gracie learned to be tough....from a distance. We spent some time over and Joel and Janet's, but poor Bronwyn came down with a bad throat, and wasn't feeling so hot, so we went home so she could rest. Gracie being full of hand me downs, goodwill purchases, and gifts from others, probably had the warmest, but least color coordinated outfit of the family. She stayed warm, figured out what pockets are for, and talked around her BAP voicing her displeasure about the snow often. Once away from it we were fine and she was happy as normal.

I think she got tired of just mom and dad, and we were eagerly anticipating some conversation and entertainment with friends, so we reached out to Brett and Leah Corle and offered to bring dessert if we could come up the hill and chat, play games, and fellowship. They agreed.

So we drove up the road to Brett and Leah's in the evening. We took brownies, played board games, visited, and let Gracie play with someone besides mom and dad. It got down to about 8 degrees by the time we said good-bye to the Corle family and their wonderful wood stove and began our ill fated journey back down the 300 yards or so to our cottage. There was nowhere to turn around and there is a ditch at the end of their road, so I backed down it, turned the front of the truck towards home and promptly slid into the ditch. The truck tilted at about a 30 degree angle with Gracie at the lower end of this pivot. She started yelling, "we're down, we're down!!!" So after many attempts to dislodge ourselves in the rapidly freezing slush, Lorianne and Gracie walked home while Brett and I using his tractor worked on freeing the truck from the ditch. I did say it was 8 degrees right? I was in jeans, t-shirt, light weight pullover, and ball cap. I was COLD! Lorianne promptly returned with my coveralls, greatly increasing my comfort level and we not long after got the truck out of the ditch to stay. Big thanks to Brett and Wyatt for braving the elements to help me at 11:30 at night, and to my wonderful bride for walking that distance in the cold twice to make my life easier. I told Wyatt "find you one that takes care of you like this and you'll live a happy, long life!" He agreed enthusiastically.


The next day, with Gracie watching happily from the window, I built the snowmen that I've been waiting almost 30 years to replicate. My last snowmen being in the late 70's with my dad when he was my age. But with Gracie being scared to death of "white stuff" we chose to let her watch from a distance, where it was ok for Daddy to expose himself to the dangers of the snow, just not Gracie!




So the turn out wasn't so bad for a snowman rookie. Though Gracie quickly tired of meeting them in person as she realized they were made of that terrible snow stuff!



In the end, we survived, thrived, and had a great time with the best snow day I've had in over 2 decades, and Gracies first. We had snow on the ground in small patches for almost 5 days, and by the next weekend it was 65 - 70 degrees and sunny. With that big swing, I almost felt back at home in Texas again!