Winter fun

All of Lexington has been excited this week because a "winter storm" was predicted for today. The schools were closed today, before even a single snowflake had fallen. The snow started falling lightly this morning - right in the middle of my run, of course - and really didn't stop for the rest of the day. All told, it looks like we got about 3 inches of snow at our house - which isn't too shabby for Kentucky, but a far cry from the dire predictions they were throwing around at the beginning of the week.

Elizabeth spent a good portion of the morning staring out our front window, waiting for there to be enough snow to go sledding.



In the afternoon, we finally decided there was enough snow on the ground to tackle Stonewall Hill, the very large hill at our local elementary school. One of the perks of me working from home was that I got to take a late lunch and tag along on the sledding expedition.



We have a new sled this year, which is super fast and fortunately evened out all the bumps and dips in the big hill - something David and I quickly realized as soon as we went down on our older, less shock-absorbent sled, which quickly reminded me that I am getting very old. The sledding was really great! There was just enough snow falling to keep the hill from being too crowded, and to keep the runs super slick. Elizabeth loved sledding, and took several turns going down with each of us. She still wasn't quite brave enough to go down on her own yet - mainly due to the combination of the creek at the bottom of the hill and the swiftness of the sled. Several times she had David go to the bottom of the hill to catch her, only to chicken out at the last minute and have me slide down with her. She ultimately decided that she would tackle the hill by herself next year. And, David and I successfully managed to keep us all out of the creek, even though it meant slamming on the brakes or bailing out of the sled at the last minute on a few occasions.





Elizabeth even managed to sucker David into pulling her UP the hill several times. But, for some reason, he never would do that for me...



The fun of the day was rounded out with a few snowball fights:





Elizabeth was also excited to get to catch the snowflakes in her mouth as they were falling:



There's a lot more snow on the ground now, so I'm sure she'll have even more fun playing in it tomorrow.

After the sledding fun, we all had the requisite hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows. Then, tonight, we made "snow ice cream." Elizabeth's preschool teacher had told them about making snow ice cream in class, and she wanted to try some.



Fortunately, the bowl we placed outside had collected quite a bit of snow, so we got to try several colors. Elizabeth insisted on making yellow snow for herself (even after I told her what yellow snow usually signifies).



David wanted his to be "natural" color. Of course, he didn't realize that when you add vanilla to the mix, that makes it brown. I guess there is something worse than yellow snow!

I chose to honor the amazing 2009-2010 as-yet undefeated UK basketball team with beautiful blue:



Now that looks like the color of champions to me!