A Good Day

Ok, so I really should be working on my activity for the Middle School Youth Retreat next week but I couldn't wait to share this day.
We woke up to about a foot of snow this morning and for the first time since we have been going to the Chapel, church was canceled. Then when we looked at weather.com I thought we would not go outside at all today. The wind chill was supposed to be in the single digits. At 10Am that seemed to be confirmed. How depressing all this lovely snow and I was going to be stuck inside all day with Abigail. I had even bought a sled Thursday and was waiting quite impatiently to take Abigail on her first sledding adventure.
But the internet was WRONG, wrong, wrong!!! Did I say WRONG?! The temperature climbed to 30 degrees perfectly warm to bundle up and go outside. And more importantly the wind died down and the snow slowed.
The adventure began at 3:30. Abigail who loves to go outside but hates coats, snowpants, boots and most especially gloves began to get dressed. I decided that while she flopped on the floor in disgust, I would get dressed. So after 10 minutes of torture we were outside. Since the snow is 1/2 as deep as Abigail is tall, she stayed where Chris had been shovelling on and off all day. She went to visit the dog. She fell down, she supervised the shovelling and the car clean-off efforts. Everytime she fell down someone had to stop to stand her back up.
Finally the time for fun came. Well after the call of nature dictated that the torture of undressing and dressing be repeated, the fun began. Abigail is light enough that the sled would not sink through the snow, so I pulled her around the yard. But, her balance is not all that great and she doesn't quite fill the sled so my footprints became speed bumps. Every so often she would roll herself right out of the sled and laugh. Chris's shovelling created the perfect Abigail sized hill to sled down. She loved it!. "Es! Ada." (Yes, Again) Chris got so excited he made a path for himself to the sledding party. (He did not wear his snow pants outside. Next time I bet he will.) I think we will all sleep well tonight. Abigail was ready enough to come inside that taking off her snow clothes was not even a battle. Of course they were so wet, we went straight to the basement.