Snow Day

During a typical winter we enjoy at least a few days of playing in the snow: we have a ski day and/or a sledding day in Arizona, and we play in the snow during a holiday visit to Utah.  This year when we were in Utah over New Year's, the only thing that marred an otherwise lovely trip was an absence of the fluffy white stuff.  And then, the stars didn't align for a ski day to ever happen - strange winter weather, Arizona snow when we weren't able to schedule it, etc.  By the end of March we knew that time was running out, so the last Saturday in March we were determined to have a sledding day.

After a long time of driving through parts of the state that we thought would surely have snow (it had snowed heavily a few days earlier but the succeeding warm days had turned the forest into a giant puddle), we finally found some!

See beyond the trees, beyond this pathetic patch -- real snow!  It was in a little ravine off the side of the highway; a little random but at that point we weren't picky.

 The hill was just right for a little late-afternoon sledding.  Here's a great action shot of Molly going down, Lucy getting up from her ride, and Noah running back up the hill.

 Cute twinners, loving the snow.

Deep enough for sledding, and snow angels... 

...and throwing snowballs. 

Before long they'd built a little jump and everybody got some pretty good air.  The dog, incidentally, was in heaven chasing the kids up & down the hill.  Whenever she got in the way though, a good trick was to throw a snowball into the woods and tell her to "go get it."  Poor thing fell for it every time. 

Noah's headed for a wipeout! 

Great air, Molly! 

It was a really fun day; it was just enough snow & sledding to make the drive to find it, and the hassle of dealing with soggy snow clothes afterwards, worth it.