And Since We've No Place to Go...

...Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

My mom and nana Some of you out there check the St. Louis weather every day occasionally and already know that it snowed here pretty heavily last weekend. Hannah loved her first real snow and while Mom & Dad also enjoyed playing in it, it wasn't so fun dealing with the practical aspects. As you'll see on the slide show, on Sunday morning Don spent about 40 minutes clearing snow off the car, trying to clear it out of our parking space, and shoveling the sidewalk. By the time he was finished and we added in getting ready time and slower drive time, we made it to church about an hour and a half later than we originally planned.

I quickly learned to carry Hannah into and out of the car because it seemed that no matter where we went or where we parked, there were several inches of snow and ice on each side of the car. I saw several parking lots that were totally cleared of snow, but of course none of the ones we visited had that honor. We learned to shovel and salt the porches, stairs, and walkways. We scraped ice off of our car numerous times.

On Saturday morning we woke up to snow. There wasn't much - only 2-3 inches maybe. But it was enough to sled so we scavenged borrowed some sleds from the neighborhood kids and found a hill right behind our apartment. Elizabeth was napping, so Don and I (and some of the other kids) got to sled with Hannah and experience her first snow right along with her. We were the only adults out "playing," which was kind of weird but we had too much fun to care.

Then on Sunday we let Hannah skip her nap and we went sledding again. By then we had 6-8 inches accumulation and the sledding was great. We went over to Concordia Park with some friends and found a looooong hill to sled down. Hannah was awesome - she kept going down by herself, either on bottom or tummy. She'd rock herself back and forth and would veer off course, almost crashing into trees. But thankfully, no injuries except some very cold toes by the time we got home. What a fun weekend!

Andy by now (Friday), almost all the snow has melted. I've been struck that something that can look so beautiful can then look so dang ugly when it gets dirty and full of dead grass and leaves. It's really pretty nasty looking around here now and I can't wait for it all to melt now.

So here's our slide show - enjoy! And if we don't get a new posting up by Christmas, just know that we pray that your celebration of Jesus' birthday will be full of peace, joy, love, and of course thankfulness to Christ for coming to earth to provide salvation for you. Merry CHRISTmas!