Snow day lessons

I'm behind on blogging. I know. We've been under snow piles for weeks now, and despite all my great intentions of getting all sorts of things done in the house, I actually was quite lazy.

Ok, I take that back. Since I knew we were going to be trapped inside for days, I doubled-down on Charlotte's potty training. So, I spent many an hour of our snow-imposed hibernation in the bathroom or doing laundry.

Therefore, I did not get all the blogging done that I had planned.

I'll just do a quick update on our snow day adventures.

This is how we spent many an hour inside during the blizzard. Apparently, Charlotte was the queen, sitting on her throne.

When they got outside, Cory jerry-rigged a sled to pull up and down the middle of our unplowed street. Charlotte seemed to enjoy this.

Molly liked our mini snow hill to slide down.

Charlotte with Ella, but not happy.

Charlotte, not happy, after falling and not being able to get up from the foot of snow on the ground. I, the ever-vigilant mother, took her picture.

I tried to get a cute picture of the girls together. Didn't happen. Charlotte wanted in. the. house.

A second attempt the next day, Charlotte was a teeny bit happier.

Snow run = crazy?

If you live in the KC-area, you've probably been obsessively checking the weather in anticipation of the coming "snowpocalpse." Wait?  Not everyone constantly checks the weather in the fervent hope that it will change, and we won't get 12 inches of snow? Well, ok, that's just me. Anyway.

Last night, the weathermen started saying that the snow for the big snowstorm wouldn't actually start falling until 6 or 7 in the morning, instead of at midnight as they had previously predicted. So, I got the crazy idea that I might just be able to sneak in one last outdoor run before the piles of snow keep me inside for days.

If you remember, I am no fan of the treadmill. So, any chance to get outside to get a run in, especially before being stuck inside with two small children all day, I was going to take. No matter how crazy that makes me.

Luckily, my running partner is just as crazy as I am, and she texted me the same idea. So, we decided to brave it. Because they had already closed school, and her husband had decided to work from home, we opted to meet at 6:45am, a little later than our normal time.

Ready for this adventure.

Sarah and I getting ready to hit the road.

As soon as we were outside, we took stock. The wind and snow were blowing hard from the east. After some discussion, we decided that we should run into the wind first, so on the way back, the snow wouldn't be blowing in our face.  (This discussion also included trying to find a way to run only to the west and getting Cory to come pick us up. We did end up nixing that, though in retrospect, it might've been the smartest plan.)

Turns out, our biggest mistake was trying to squeeze in that extra half hour of sleep before our run. We should've gone at our normal time, because although the snow was not bad when we started, in the hour that we were out, it snowed something like 2-4 inches. That is an incredibly rapid rate of snowfall. Especially coming down on two lone runners. (Yup, shockingly, we didn't see any other runners out.)

What started as lovely white cushioning for our joints turned into inches and inches of white quicksand to trudge through. The plan was to just head out on the trail (in hopes to get a bit of protection from the blowing snow) for about 2.5 miles, then turn around and get the wind at our backs.

But, by the time we got to our turnaround point, which just happened to coincide with the sighting of coyote. (Yeah, we were ready to turn around after that!), the snow had already started coming down hard and fast. It was getting really hard to run through. We couldn't even see our own footprints from the run out.

But, at least when we turned around, we got to enjoy the beauty of running in the snow. It helps that I was finally able to open my eyes all the way. I'm pretty sure I had my eyes closed half of the way out into the east because of the snow blowing into my face.