Noreaster

Firstborn finally saw the snowfalls he had been waiting all winter for. We've listened all winter to him whining about how he wishes he lived in New England still where they get enough snow.


Don't know quite what he is whining about since he has used up all 5 of the allotted snow days and he has gotten to go sledding more here than we ever went back home. Being in a nice development means that I don't mind a whole gaggle of kids walking 3 blocks to the neighborhood lump-in-the-dirt to go sledding. So as soon as we get the slightest amount of snow, he is over at the mound for a sledding adventure. I never had the opportunity to let him walk on his own to a park for sledding in the northeast.


This weekend's storm was every sledder's dream come true though. It started Friday morning with fairly heavy, wet snow and continued through all day Saturday. Our Destination Imagination dress rehearsal was cancelled on Sunday, our CCD was cancelled on Sunday and pretty much everything was put on hold. The funny part was that the storm was over by Sunday morning and there was no reason to cancel anything.



On top of the lack of responsibility, was the wonderful temperature in the high 30s and the bright twinkling sun.

So I decided that we needed to try out a new sledding location. Something about sledding down (and consequently tearing apart) and ancient sacred site just puts me off a bit and, while I tell the kids that if they are going to desecrate an ancient religious spot, they should at least stop and take a moment to pray before they hurl their bodies down the side of the ancient mound, I still don't feel good about it.

So off to a park further north we went.

We almost missed it. Up the road a bit, there are some signs on the side of the road marking the entrance to a woodsy park with lots of trails and a meandering brook. The sledding hill, to the best of my knowledge is the area from the road, leading down to the brook at the bottom of the hill.

It is a nice steep hill, but it is surrounded on both sides by short, scruffy, put-your-eye-out trees and it ends in a 6-inch deep brook. If this were a fast snow, I would never have let the kids sled here. Not like they would drown in that brook, but they could get very wet and cold.

On the other side of the road, there is another entrance to the park. Again, it is a steep hill leading down to a longer flat distance before running into the brook. But on this side, there are park signs and trail signs right in the middle of the sledding area. Who thought of that one.

Of course, Firstborn decided that whichever side I picked was going to be the more boring. And Lastborn was too busy eating the snow. Luckily, the third sledder, a neighbor boy, was enjoying the actual sledding.

The snow was very slow at first. Great packing snow, it was great for snowballs, forts and snowmen, but not great for sledding unless you can start a path. Once smoothed, it could be fast if you know how to ride it. We only have saucers this year, so I did a trial run to try to teach the kids that if you keep your weight back on the saucer, it really goes well because the edges don't get stuck in the snow. They didn't listen, but I did have a good run and I packed down a starter path for the others to use.

15 inches of snow makes for nice sledding on just about any hill. And the fact that it was good-packing snow mean that there would be a base all day.

That will probably be our last sledding snow of the season. With Easter next weekend, I hope it's our last snow altogether, but I know better. We had such warm weather last week before the big storm came in that it was somewhat shocking to see so much snow. Even the kids were a bit impatient with it and they did not take nearly as much advantage of it as I had hoped they would. Firstborn is hankering to get back out to the woods to see how his forts are doing. Lastborn just wants to play his DS.