Two-hour delay

Students in District 20 are very familiar with the two-hour school delay when it snows.  The delays are usually for ridiculously little snow (like an inch or two) in our part of town, but since our school district stretches into more mountainous country that has more treacherous weather (this is what I tell myself), I try to be patient.  We had three two-hour delays spread over the last six school days. I am learning to enjoy the lazy mornings.

Friday's two-hour delay was called on Thursday night as fat snowflakes fell rapidly, so I woke up mentally prepared. After getting home from the gym I shoveled about four inches of snow from the driveway and sidewalk.  After breakfast, I convinced the little kids that we should go outside and play in the snow. The snow was way too dry to pack into a snowman or make proper snow angels, but we had great fun on sleds. After many runs around the cul-de-sac (I pulled the kids, one at a time, as I ran), we moved on to runs down the street, which has a nice slope.  I got pretty tired, but the kids got some good speed and were giggling with glee!  On what I deemed the last run of the day, I was pulling all three kids on two sleds for about the third time.  I was tired and didn't keep the sleds as far from my body as I should have, so near the end one sled took my feet out from under me and I had a terrific fall. I am just fine, but I'm glad the spectacle wasn't captured on camera.  My neighbor who was shoveling surely got a good laugh out of it.

I took the kids to school (middle school started at 9:45 and elementary at 10:15) and had a relatively quiet day at home with the girls.  It snowed all afternoon, accumulating another 3-5 inches.  The roads were awful when I went to pick up the boys.  I will never understand why Colorado Springs does not plow major roads. What is normally a 20-minute round trip (two schools) took 45.  I was late to the elementary school but Tyler and Gavin were playing in the snow while they waited for me.  I grabbed a couple pictures of them before letting them in the van.

I shoveled the driveway again after school.  Note: Garry usually shovels the snow, but I wanted to this time.  Then Garry came home early and we all helped Zach fold and bag the newspaper so we could deliver it earlier.  We were slow going, but we managed to navigate the neighborhoods without incident and not freeze to death with the passenger window rolled down.

Our weather is certainly not as extreme as many places around the country right now, but I definitely feel like we are getting a real winter in these parts.  I hear that more storms are coming next week.  We'll be sure to stock up on milk and then hunker down for what promises to be more delays or cancellations at school.