Snow Day!

This is what I woke up to this morning, and this is NOT a normal sight here in the Silicon Valley, even though we do live in the hills. Snow was falling and everything was covered in inches of snow. Beautiful! For the first time in my life I woke my kids up (rather than the other way around!) so they could see it while it was still falling.

Of course, the day's plans were immediately canceled, friends were called, and it was declared a snow day. We spent the entire morning alternately playing outside and sitting inside defrosting, drinking hot chocolate and eating coffee cake. Brett took a huge ice-chest full of snow down to Moses' preschool so the kids could play with it (I know, awesome, right?) and even skipped out on work to drag Moses and his buddy Keefe around the entire 3 acre property on a make-shift sled.

The roses that decided to bloom last week were a bit confused by the whole thing. Poor pretty things.
The boys were thrilled, Moses especially, who will tell you that his favorite time of the year is winter because we "go to the snow." He could hardly believe that the snow had come to us! I'm afraid I didn't even get many great pictures because I was too busy enjoying it all. I know I'll remember it all forever, though, and that's what really matters.

Twain Harte

That look on that adorable face is EXACTLY why we took this trip. The entire trip was precipitated by Moses telling Brett that winter is his favorite season because of the snow. He decided then and there that we needed to hit the slopes one more time before the season was over. We took our friends the McCarthys and had a BLAST playing and relaxing - the perfect combination of people and activities.
We ended up at Pine Crest Lake which was only partly full of water, the rest being full of snow! The men folk hit the snow right away... actually, so did Jen and the ever-amiable baby Elle. It was a little tricky figuring out what to do with a 4 month old in the snow, but I managed pretty well: he napped in the car while I read my book in the front seat. When he finally woke up, we ventured out to watch a bit of sledding, eat a few chocolate chip cookies (I ran up and down the snowy hill a few times to make myself feel better about the cookies), and then headed back to the car and straight to the pizza parlor (where I nullified all afore-mentioned running). Pretty darn great.
The end of the day was full of the usual post-snow activities: changing into warm dry clothes (doesn't that feel so great?!?!), eating a great dinner, making s'mores outside, then bath, books, and bed. A great way to say goodbye to winter and enjoy a super fun vacation that is only 2 hours away from home. Thanks for coming with us McCarthys!!!

Guess What We Got Today...

It was a very pleasant surprise to wake up to huge snowflakes falling outside after a long night of potty training incidents (will we ever sleep through the night again?!?!) at the end of a LONG weekend of Daddy being out of town.

Of course, we got the "Silicon Valley" version of snow: it snowed for 5 minutes and stuck around for no longer than 2 hours. As soon as we got out of bed and saw the snow, I threw a coat and boots on Moses and we ran outside to enjoy it while it lasted. He was thrilled that we were playing outside in our "P-Jams." Pretty fun way to wake up. :)