A Georgia Girl in Germany

I woke up this morning expecting a little snow on the ground. However, I shot right of bed when the radio deejay said all schools in Stuttgart were closed today and everyone else had a two-hour delayed reporting. I quickly looked out the window to see a massive amount of the white powder covering everything in sight.

If you look closely at the ruler MacKenzie’s holding, it shows we have at least seven-and-a-half inches of snow. That was first thing this morning...before an additional eight hours of non-stop snow! Granted, it didn’t come down at the same rate as it did overnight, but it was enough to keep adding to what we already had. Thankfully, we weren’t planning on driving anywhere today!


Since I had an extra two hours before I had to be at work, we headed out to make the most of our free time. This early outdoor adventure helped get everyone’s day off to a good start. Granted, Benjamin didn’t care much for the cold that accompanied the snow, and let me know every time snow touched his skin.

We found a small hill and made a few runs down on our sleds. Benjamin wanted to sled, but wasn’t ready to go solo so opted to ride in my lap instead. The snow was very powdery, so you can barely tell that we’re on a sled!


The kids were good about staying bundled up for warmth. I love this shot of MacKenzie with the fresh snow in her hair despite the hood. Benjamin’s hat is a little big, and he would regularly remind me that it was covering his eyes. There was a fine line between his hat being too low that it covered his eyes and too high that it didn’t cover his ears. We fought that battle most of the day, but he was a good sport about it.

Zachary liked the fact that he could eat the snow as it fell from the sky. I remember Lucy from "Peanuts" commented that she never ate the first snow of the season because it wasn’t ripe yet. Even though this was our first snow of the season, I think it was pretty ripe and well overdue!


After a few downhill runs on the sled, Benjamin was ready to head inside. It was also time for me to start getting ready for work. He made a brief stop on the way home to pick a few berries off the bushes outside our apartment building so he could drop them in the snow and bury them. However, once we got back home, my boss called to let me know only mission-essential personnel had to report to work today. Translation: stay at home and have fun in the snow. I hadn’t had a snow day since I was in junior high!


After lunch, we all headed back outside for round #2 of the snow fun. This time we tackled the more popular hill behind our house. After riding down the hill a few times in my lap, Benjamin decided he was ready to sled solo. He really enjoyed it -- especially since he didn’t wipe out at the bottom. That probably would have changed his mind about the fun factor! He didn’t even want anyone to give him a push to get started down the slope. After a while, he informed me he wanted to go over the “bump” at the bottom of the hill, and after a little persuasion agreed to ride with me to do so. I could just see him going airborne and wiping out, so thankfully he didn’t push the going solo issue.


In his typical over-exaggeration fashion, Zachary buried himself and his sled in the resulting powder after one of his runs. Yes, his sled is underneath him!

At this point, Benjamin was getting tired of the snow. He had just trudged through a field where the snow was at least as high as his knees, and he was getting tired of battling the powder just to walk. He complained with almost every other step that the snow was “too big.” It didn’t help that his hat was winning the battle against his right eye either. Fortunately, once we got inside it didn’t take much for him to fall asleep and get a good nap.


After supper, MacKenzie was the only one interested in round #3 of the snow fun. In fact, she was adamant about wanting to build a snowman and make a snow angel. The snow wasn’t very conducive to making a snowman since it was very dry and powdery and therefore didn’t want to stick together. As a result, her snowman wasn’t the only one that was short and squatty. But she didn’t mind.

She tried to make her first snow angel in very fresh, undisturbed snow...and could barely get up afterward since the snow was taller than she was (when lying down, that is). Her second attempt was in an area that wasn’t quite as deep and had been trudged through a little already, so it was easier to create. Her added bonus after all her outdoor adventures was that she had hot chocolate twice today. It was a perfect treat to help warm her up after playing out in the cold! She's already decided that she doesn't want to go to school tomorrow. We'll just have to wait and see what the morning holds in store though.

We're expected to get more snow during the next few nights, and through the weekend. More importantly, the high temps for tomorrow and Friday are predicted to not break above freezing! Brrrrr!! Good thing the kids have learned to bundle up!

Labels: Benjamin, MacKenzie, Zachary