Snow Fun

 After not having much snow last year, I mean like hardly any all season, I'd say our winter snowfall this year has been pretty ideal. Not too much has fallen at one time, just enough to keep the ground covered and the roads decent the past week. We patiently waited until our half day at the end of the semester on Friday to go sledding. I wanted to make sure Austin got his study time in and planned to take him and some of his friends, as well as Erik and some of his friends sledding. It turned out that Kade was planning on going with his friends after we returned so he could use the sleds.

The whole week I wasn't able to take my students outside because, with the real feel, it felt below 15 degrees, which is the cut-off. On Friday, we were finally able to go out for recess and the sun was shining! It was going to be a perfect day for sledding! 

Well, the temperature got above 32, and somehow, by the time we got all the kids picked up and into the cars (Kade had to drive Erik and his friends because we had so many kids going!), when we got to the sledding hill, there was hardly any snow on it. The sun was shining bright and I'm sure the kids who got there earlier helped wear down the snow. Everything else was covered, just not the hill. They made some pretty good runs down on the patchy areas, none of which I took pictures of before they found the frozen pond and we played there the longest. I really wish I owned iced skates! We did check to make sure it was frozen enough, and it was more than 6 inches thick through most of it, just not the edges. Of course, Austin decided at the end to get some of the big ice chunks from an edge and break them. Otherwise, everyone stayed out of mischief and remained unharmed. I tried not to be in the way, so I only took a picture of Austin when he asked me to with his ice chunk. I was the mode of transportation and supervisor of safety issues. Erik had fewer friends with him and I somehow trusted him more to not do anything too stupid, so I didn't see him as much as he and his friends were wandering around finding adventures in the snow. Needless to say, I didn't get any pictures of him. However, the day before when it was way too cold, he was at a friend's house who took a picture of those boys in the snow in her yard.

Now we have to brace ourselves for the extreme cold coming our way!

Erik and his buddies on Thursday.

Austin throwing ice on Friday.

You can hardly even see the pond here because of all the snow on top. Who would have thought the snow on the sledding hill would have melted??