Viky

Here's our snowman from today.  Iceman is more like it.  We didn't get much in the way of snow last night - you can see by mid-morning the level of snow in the background there.  It wouldn't roll so well to begin with, so Daddy used the snow shovel to make a big pile of ice/snow chunks, from which we made a ball.  And then we rolled that ball around, which collected mass as it went.  That seemed to do the trick, but the end result is this solid mass of ice that may remain standing a few days while all around the neighborhood, other snowmen melt away.  It helps that this one spends so much time in the shade.  Madison named him "Viky," which is a nickname you would never give a real Viking.  But he seems friendly enough.  After all, you can see him with that sled, so the guy knows how to have a good time, right?

About that sled!  Madison wrote a note to Santa this morning and put it in the fireplace.  Yes, that old trick.  It was a request for a sled for the snow.  The note burned, sending flakes and ashes up the chimney, and surely there wouldn't be a present coming to us anytime soon, right?  We all went upstairs to get changed into our 'playing-in-the-snow gear,' and when we returned to the great room downstairs, we saw a new sled by the fireplace!

Suspiciously, the back door was open wide, suggesting that whoever it is that left the thing there came in from out back.  Or somewhere.  How does Santa do that?

As you can imagine, we did a whole lot of test runs with that sled.  It works just fine.  Madison went down the hill a lot, the one beside our house on our property there.  The snow was covered in a layer of thin ice, which made it even slicker.  The snow didn't go away, but rather remained as is as she passed over it time and again.  Perfect sledding weather, actually!

Yes, there were plenty of thrown snowballs as well.  It was a perfectly lovely morning in the snow, one that passed all too briefly.  We were ready to come in at the end, cold and wet and ready for that fireplace.  We did get to talk to Nana and Ba-Ba before we came in, carrying around our iPad about, using Skype to show them the snowy landscape.  They even got to see Madison sled down the hill, and also got to see our snowman.

But we did have to come in to warm up.  It'll get warmer this afternoon, but there's nothing like a fireplace or a hot bath.  Madison got both of those, and soon, we were off and running with homework and piano work.  There was still a lot of online work to do for the school, so she did a bit of that, including an assignment where she had to make up an indoor game with cards and dice or something.  We spent a while doing just that, creating a game called "Six Shooter," which we tried out a few rounds.  It might work out as a real game, although we probably still need to test it out a bit more.

The evening ended with the turtles.  Madison has not watched a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" movie yet, and honestly, there's only one that she can watch a present.  That one is called "TMNT," and it's the one we watched tonight before going to bed.  It was great to introduce her to this cultural experience!  She's known about the turtles, of course.  She even plays a video game with them in it.  BUT, she's never seen them elsewhere.  So this was kind of a big deal:  her first turtle movie.  As you could imagine, Michelangelo is her favorite.  That is Daddy's favorite too, currently, although he started out with Raphael as the favorite.  Anyway, we were saying "Cowabunga," and headed up to bed afterwards - tomorrow is school again!  Yes, it's been rare these past few weeks!  We even almost forgot to set the alarm!

Anyway, it was a wonderful day really.  We didn't get anywhere near the snow we were expecting, so that in a way was disappointing.  But in retrospect, we got enough.  We got enough to throw snowballs, go sledding, and build a snowman named "Viky."  And really, that's all the snow you need!