Second snow day: sun and fun

Today was pretty fun, as snow days go. The beginning of the day was quite crisp, 19F at 8:30 am when Son1 ventured outside for the newspaper (these kids are all about the comic strips, and are no longer satisfied with the Sunday color comics). It was gorgeous -- little drifts of wind-blown snow providing terrain and texture in the simple whiteness covering the ground everywhere, all dazzling in the bright sunlight. And the blessed stillness! No wind! By 9:30 am the boys were champing at the bit, so I let them bundle up and head outside.

They stayed outside for nearly three hours!!!

They made a beeline for the park behind our house. The temps steadily climbed, maxing around 47F after noon. With the moderate temps, no wind, and the sunshine I noticed they had unzipped their coats and, eventually, removed their hats. It turns out what finally brought the boys in was a combination of cold, wet feet (no snow boots) and unfamiliar kids showing up who were happy to throw snowballs at faces, grrr.

While they were out, though, they explored snowdrifts and broad expanses of snow in the park behind our house at great length. After a while the next-door-neighbor kiddos showed up, and they all played for a long time. There seemed to be snow fort construction, snowball throwing, falling prone into snowdrifts, and on, and on. In yesterday's stormy, windy snowfall the kids were only able to throw snow flurries -- the snow was too cold to pack well -- but today the now-packable snow was pretty decent for snowballs and snowpeople and snowforts.

The boys went out again in the late afternoon to attempt to build a snowman. They got about two-thirds of the way done and were just too cold to stay out longer (still-wet shoes, hard to get around that). They warmed up with a change of clothes and another round of hot cocoa and settled in to play indoors. Our boys were so tired and ready for bed at the end of the day!

We still have snow on the ground, but a lot melted during the day in areas exposed to the south. The snowman attempt was in the front yard, on the north side of the house, shaded by our two-story abode. It's already 25F at not quite midnight, and supposed to be cloudy tomorrow and not much above freezing, so maybe the boys will get to play again in the snow remaining from today.

Oh, arrggh! I just realized I forgot to get out our Calvin and Hobbes books after the snowman attempt. I want to introduce the boys to Calvin's idea of snowpeople ("I'm melting!", or snowmen at war, or, well, gee, I don't remember the rest). That'll be fun to do tomorrow!