Snow!

It's been raining for the past week, and so there's been a lot wrestling on the couch, indoor tag, and general bouncing off of walls.

After five straight days of being cooped up indoors, I got desperate one day and sent the boys outside in the rain. They didn't last very long in the cold and rain, but they lasted long enough to drive their trucks through some fun puddles.

And so on Saturday morning we drove up to snowy Henry Coe Park (about 40 minutes from our house) to take a hike.

 When we first arrived, Mark accidentally hit Ben in the face with a snowball. Ben was not too happy about this. Every 10 minutes for the rest of the hike, he would ask Mark, "Daddy, why you hit me with a snowball? I didn't like that." 

 The last leg of our hike was uphill. Normally, Benji doesn't last very long on walks just down the street, let alone an uphill hike. But this time he walked three-quarters of the way himself. It helped that we kept asking the boys to find the source of this little stream, so they had some motivation to read the top of the hill (where our car was parked).

Snow! Seeing the snow falling in heavy fat flakes reminded me of the sense of excitement I got as a child waiting for the first snow. In Connecticut, the first snow could come as early as the beginning of November, and it was always fun wondering if it would be enough to go out to play in or enough to cancel or delay school the next day. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I should say) since we live in California and will be homeschooling, my kids probably won't ever get to experience the joy of having a snow storm cancel a few days of school. 

This is the best snowman we could come up with given the sparse amount of snow on the ground. He was about one foot tall and the kids loved making him.

When we got home, we built a fire and thawed out while we ate our lunch. The rest of the day was a pleasant blur of family naps and hanging around the house.