snow, Snow, SNOW!

...I want to wash my hair, my face in...wait, what am I saying, that's cold and weird.

Anyway, we've had a lot of snow in Virginia this winter.  Two weeks ago we had around 14 inches.  My kids love playing in the snow.  Karly and Weston especially are hard to get to come inside once they're out in it.  Once I looked out the window and saw Karly just laying in the snow.  Not making a snow angel, just resting in it.  We have a couple of popular hills by us for sledding.  The elementary school has 2 hills, for example, the gradual longer one and the steep short one.  The kids sled even when the snow is still falling and blowing in their faces.  Sterling had "snow burn" on his cheeks for a few days after sledding.   My older kids have a tradition of going "night sledding."  They invite their friends to go sledding in the dark, then coming to our house for hot chocolate and games.

The morning of the last blizzard the whole neighborhood was out on the street shoveling and digging out cars.  The kids were making tunnels and luges out of the huge piles of snow.  Also, inspired by the Olympics, my kids tried out snowboarding on the school hill.  Another favorite tradition is to make a fire pit in the snow and burn mom's scraps of wood.  All the neighbor kids like to participate.

After that snow storm, we've had 2 more, including an ice storm that they canceled school for.  It's been a kids' dream.

Here's a few pics.

Karly on the one-quarter pipe.

Sterling used to last 15 minutes in the snow, now he's in it for the long haul.  See Weston in the background with the pink board on his head?  You're asking yourself why he's carrying his sled like a surfboard, right?  Well, it's because it is a surf board, Jason's boogie board that we've found goes really fast down the hills.  All the years of the waxy build-up, I guess.

Weston heading up the hill for another run.

This pile is in our front yard next to the driveway past the sidewalk.  Behind the kids is a neighbor's car.  The pile was above the car.  Later we felt bad and dug out the neighbor's car for them.

The kids made a bench to sit on to enjoy their fire.  At this point it was raining, but they wouldn't come inside.

 We love snow, but this is getting ridiculous.  Our school district has built-in about 15 snow days, and we're about at that limit.  Oh yeah, and we just got another 6 inches today.  So from snowy Virginia we say...

CAN'T WAIT FOR SPRING!