Weekend Snow Shenanigans

It's been a weird winter.  We've had a bunch of small snowfalls, but not much of significance.  I think we maybe had one snowfall of a couple inches where it stayed cold for long enough that it stayed on the ground for a few days, but most of the time it snows barely enough to cover anything and whatever limited sun we have melts it the next day.  That has happened over and over again all winter.  I'm not a big fan of snow, but after a while it actually starts getting annoying.  I mean, snowy landscapes are pretty.  I have windows to watch it build up, which I don't have as readily when I'm in the office.  Brown and gray get rather boring after a while.  The kids need some sort of outlet for their energy, and muddy grass doesn't cut it.  I've been ready for a decent snowfall since Christmas, and the other day, we finally got it.  

We ended up with about six inches of lake effect from Friday into Saturday.  It was super pretty midday Friday when I went out to a doctor's appointment, with all the snow resting perfectly in the trees, but the wind picked up a bit and that was short lived.  But the snow has hung in there for a couple days now, and we had a perfectly placed weekend to go play in it.  Unfortunately, it's not great packing snow, but on the bright side it meant our reintroduction to shoveling wasn't too bad.  Of course, I still felt it this morning, but I opted to hop on the elliptical anyway, which may have been a mistake based on our afternoon activity today.  But first...yesterday!

Jacob has been begging to play a game of family football, which is really just two-on-two in the yard and almost guaranteed touchdowns each time.  Jacob made it his mission to mark off the yardage in the backyard.

We played a solid game (Jacob and me vs. Craig and Carter) and ended up tied.  It's harder than it looks to run in snow and catch with mittens!  I needed to run to Wegmans so we had to cut this session a bit short, but Jacob and Craig wrapped things up by kicking field goals over the swing set.  Jacob made it his mission and finally got one!

When we got back in the house, Carter had an unfortunate, chilly surprise hiding in his sleeve!

Our plan on Sunday was to go sledding in the afternoon.  We've never been, believe it or not.  I don't quite know why.  For a long time I didn't have snow pants, not that that would have stopped us.  I think it was just the matter of not knowing the best spot or hitting the timing quite right.  Of course, it probably didn't help that we really only had one sled plus one weird "snow slider" that basically just fits your butt and you need to hold your legs up, which isn't easy.  It worked okay going down snow piles in the yard, but I figured it would be harder on a real hill (and it was).  We never really prioritized getting another one, until today.  We tried a few different options to find another sled, but apparently there was a run on them!  Our last shot (after no-gos at Walmart and the CountryMax down the road, which had a ton online but none in store) was Target, and I happened to grab the very last saucer!  It was a little beat up (those white marks that plastic does when its bent a bit) but it was fine otherwise--and super cheap!  Crisis averted!

We decided to check out a nearby hill someone suggested on Craig's Facebook.  It really needed a few extra inches of snow because the reedy grasses that normally grow on this hill were poking up in a lot of places, but it was a good hill.  We went down to a less busy area right on the edge of the park property, and probably did a dozen runs each.  It was a hike back up, that's for sure!

It was a cold day but I wasn't really at all cold.  I think we were all bundled up really well, and the hike up the hill was enough to keep you warm!  It was hard to find a good route down where ruts didn't take you way off track, but we did manage to have some good runs and have a good time.

Here's a run where Craig and Carter tried to race Jacob, and they somewhat collided--but notice how Jacob just keeps going!

Here are Jacob and Carter going on a run.

Here is Craig on a crazy run!  He just keeps going and ends up in the weeds!  I did the same thing twice, too!  Those rides were great.  The saucer really did its job!




This is the spot where we kept ending up!

We had a great time, and the light was already starting to dim when we left.

If nothing else, this little outing renewed my desire to make it back to the snow park I went to on my trip to Quebec in high school.  I have never had so much fun in the snow as I did that day, in frigid temperatures and an abundance of layers to counteract temperatures around zero.  They have so many tubing runs and they're so exhilarating.  They also feel a lot safer than sleds because the runs are groomed and the tubes absorb any bumps a lot better.  It's a nice bonus they have lines that pull you up the hill in your tube, so no long hikes up like today.  There's also a run you do in a white water raft and that one had a crazy drop--to the point they told you to sit on the seat, not the floor, because you'd hurt your butt (or likely your tailbone) when it landed.  The place just popped up in a video by one of Jacob's favorite YouTubers, who visited the Ice Hotel as well.  Whenever we can get across the border I would absolutely like to go there and make a fun long weekend of it because it was such a good time when I was 17.  I suppose we could try the tubing place about 40 minutes away, but I think I just want an adventure!  But now that I know the kids have fun with it and our snow clothes kept us comfortable, I would totally give it a shot!

We came home to the double disappointment of the Green Bay Packers losing to Tom Brady, and the Bills crapping out pretty badly against the Chiefs.  So not only don't we get to go to the Super Bowl, but Tom Brady does...again.  Ugh.  As I said on Facebook, I'm taking this loss as a sign we're just not ready yet, and God is sparing us from losing a fifth Super Bowl and doing it to our biggest adversary, whose exit from our division finally paved the way for us to actually make the playoffs.  Losing to him in the biggest game possible would have been extra hard to stomach.  So maybe it's better this way for now.

I tried to ease the pain by making a tasty dessert for tonight--Instant Pot S'mores Cakes!  I used the new ramekins I bought at the Corning Museum a couple weeks ago to make single ones for each of us.  It was pretty darn tasty and while it did take a little work, it was surprisingly not too hard!

So, I guess despite the loss it was a decent weekend of family fun, which is admittedly hard to come by around here most of the time.  Let's hope the snow keeps up a bit and we can try again another week--though maybe we need to buy sled #3 first!