Snow Daze

When I was a kid there was nothing more exciting as the prospect of a snow day.  I can remember waiting (often in vain) for the first flakes to fall the night before.  The obvious goal: for school to be canceled.  It doesn’t take a great deal of snow to cancel school around here, so the chances were pretty fair.  It’s nice to that this hasn’t been lost on my son.  They had been forecasting snow for last Friday all week.  The predicted totals had been in flux all week but by Thursday we were in the 3-6 inch range.  Unfortunately, the time of arrival had changed to Friday afternoon/evening, so poor Brian had to do his homework and go to bed knowing he most assuredly would be going to school.

Unfortunately the kids were at their mom’s this weekend because we did get about 5 inches of powdery white goodness.  It turns out that I’m still just as pumped about snow as I used to be.  We only get a couple of good snows a year around here, so it gets me going.  I stayed up late Friday night just to watch it piling up.  Saturday I had promised ExGf-1’s son that I would take him sledding (I made this promise when the forecast had the snow coming late Thursday night so I was planning on taking all three kids).  Nick doesn’t really have a male roll-model in his life, and while I may not be the best roll model, there are things this kid needs to know about being a boy.  After sledding when they dropped me off at home, I told him I was going to make Brian a Snow Fort.  Nick said, “Cool, I want one.  But what do you do with a snow fort?”  WTF?  What kid doesn’t know about the joy of sitting inside a cold, cramped “igloo” and pretending to be an Eskimo?

So I set about to making Brian’s Snow Fort and told Nick to shovel his driveway and make a huge pile of snow.  In the mean time I I set about to work on Brian’s fort.  For Christmas I got Brian and Hadley these snow brick molds.  Turns out that it takes a really long time to build a Fort with these things and so I abandoned that method and opted for the preferred.

For the ladies how probably don’t know, there preferred method of Snow Fort construction involved making a huge pile of snow, packing it down, piling up more, and then digging out your living space.  I chose a spot that receives morning sun so as to melt the snow a little and by afternoon it’s in shade so it freezes back nice and solid.  I spent about 5 hours over the weekend shoveling and piling snow, and Brian wasn’t even here!  Sometimes I wonder who I’m really doing this for.  I guess I still enjoy a good snow day as much as any kid.  Brian will be here this afternoon so I’ll post pictures once we finish it.

Jahm