Friday, February 17, 2012

Our First Snow Day in VA



Born and raised in southern California, I have very little experience with snow. My snow memories are limited to:
  • a day trip to the mountains when I was in elementary school. I went with my friend Lorin and her family. The lasting memory I have from that day is when I slipped on the packed snow and hurt my tailbone. I don't think it has ever been quite the same since.
  • one day back in 1989 when it actually snowed at my home north of Los Angeles. Although we only had a couple of inches, school was closed and we played all day with everyone in the neighborhood. It was so magical! I distinctly remember my mom making Caramel Corn. Now, when I think of a snowy day, I think of Caramel Corn.
  • a ski trip when I was studying in France. I had never skied before and for some reason my friend Delphine thought it would be okay to take me up the mountain without actually teaching me anything about skiing first. Amazingly enough, I went along with it. What was I thinking?! The wind picked up so much while we were on the lift that they had to stop the lift periodically throughout our ascent. When we finally reached the top, the shut down the ski lift because the conditions were too dangerous. I still needed to get down the mountain, and I had zero skiing skills. Long story short, I ended up being taken down the mountain by annoyed ski patrol guy.
  • a visit to Kansas City to see my sister when Ella was just a toddler.
  • an afternoon trip up the mountains near Solvang to see the snow. Ella liked it for a little while until she got too cold. Lucie was about one at the time, and she didn't like it at all.

After a very mild winter here, I've got a new memory to add to the list. It finally snowed here! On Saturday night, just after we arrived at our family's house, the snow began. We had expected it to snow a bit later in the evening, but it caught us unawares at about 6pm. Oh, it was beautiful! It didn't snow very long, and a lot of it melted before it was time to head home for the evening. But, then Sunday morning, we awoke to this:


The girls were very excited to head out and play in the snow. Of course, it wasn't quite like that snow memory from 1989. No neighbors were out playing in the snow. We saw a couple of people sweeping the snow off of their driveways, but that was about it. In all honesty, it wasn't really that much snow. Most of it melted by the afternoon, but I can officially add it to my list of snow memories.



1 comment:

FishMama said...

Just for the record ;) It was 8 inches that fell in 1989. Dad measured it at Santa Clarita Elementary that morning when we went at the crack of dawn to get his video camera.

And then we drove through the parking lot -- spinning out on purpose.