Frosty the Snowman

All this snow we've had has sure been fun for the kids in the area. No school and there's still enough of the white stuff covering the hills for them to slide down on their sleds, tubes and saucers. I saw snowmen gracing the lawns of several homes on my way into work, each one with it's own personality. Short ones, tall ones, some had arms, some didn't, some had hats and scarves, a few were lopsided. One was sitting in a wagon, one in a wheelbarrow. There was even one in the bed of an old, broken down truck. That one took some effort, I'm sure.

Some of the lawns were completely untouched, pristinely sparkling with smooth snow not even a dog had walked through. Picture-postcard perfect! Our lawn would look like that if it weren't for the neighbor's German Shepherd Cowboy, who comes over to see if our dog Jake is back from whatever long vacation he's been on lately. I know he's wondering where in the world his old buddy has gone and when's he coming back?

Then there's the sweet little 8-year old boy that lives next to us that had no one to play in the snow with on Saturday. I saw him out the kitchen window, walking around in the snow by himself and decided to invite him over to our yard to slide down our hill out back. He was thrilled to have someone to entertain him and didn't seem the least bit disappointed to have a playmate at least four times his age!

I encouraged him to climb as high up the hill as he could and assured him I'd catch him when he got down to the bottom. He was a little chicken at first and would only go halfway up, but once he had gone down a time or two and realized I really would catch him, then he got more daring and climbed higher and higher up the hill. The only problem with this for me was the higher he started from, the faster he came flying down and the harder it was for me to catch him! But, the bruised shins were worth it just to hear his laughter and see the huge grin on his rosy-cheeked face. When we both had had enough for the day, he ran home and I went inside to thaw my fingers and toes and to check the extent of the damage to my shins.

My formerly smooth, snow-covered backyard was now dotted with tiny boot tracks and a long winding path from the top of our hill all the way down to the fire pit. The only thing missing was a lopsided snowman! If this snow sticks around, maybe we'll work on that on our next play date!