Let it Snow!

Snow! Photo taken today: Tuesday, December 29, 2009

I never missed snow when I was in Saipan. "Let it snow, let it snow somewhere else", I said in a blog entry from last December. I was perfectly content with the endless summer of Saipan, and once we made the decision to move back to the Mainland, I dreaded the bitterness of our first winter back.

However, I since we've been back here in America, as the temperatures have dropped as fall turned into winter I've found that the cold hasn't bothered me as much as I thought it would. Furthermore, I found myself as excited about the season's first snowfall as a little kid on Christmas morning. I checked the weather forecast daily, eagerly awaiting predictions of snow. Our first snowfall of the season was a few days into December, and while the roads were a bit tricky on the drive to work that morning, by the time I reached Columbus there was no snow at all, and when I returned home that evening, the snow that had fallen in the Dayton area had long since melted away. There were a couple of other snow showers in the weeks leading up to Christmas break but it never got cold enough to stick. So our first real snowfall of the season was on Sabbath, December 19, 2009, the first day of Christmas vacation. I woke up Sabbath morning to a world blanketed in white.


Waking up to our first real snowfall. The view outside our bedroom window, Sabbath morning, December 19, 2009.

Of course I was especially excited to get the Little Feller out there to experience his first snow. It turned out that everyone was a little slow getting ready for church. Barbara's mom was in bed with a cold, and by the time Barbara and her dad were ready to go, we'd already missed Sabbath School. So I volunteered to just stay home with Elijah (since all I'd be doing at church would be following him around in the foyer, since he's not yet learned to sit still through an entire church service). Of course the first thing we did was bundle up and head out into the winter wonderland of God's creation. The Feller loved it, of course, and had a blast exploring the once-familiar now remade in a covering of snow.

My son and I set off to explore the winter wonderland. Sabbath, December 19, 2009.


The view of the garden and back yard from the back patio. This is where the Feller celebrated his first birthday. How different it looks now!_

That afternoon, temperatures warmed again and the snow slowly melted over the days leading up to Christmas. There would be no white Christmas this year.

But this past Sunday, the snow started falling in earnest again. When the snow began to fall, I was watching the Little Feller while Babs was at the store and I made the mistake of carrying him outside for just a moment so he could experience the heavy snowfall. He seemed interested, reaching to try to catch the flakes, but he didn't seem overly fascinated. Since we were both outside without coats, we went right back in and immediately he started crying. He wanted to go back out! I was on the phone with Carol Paez at the time and thought I'd finish up the conversation first, but he kept fussing. Two more times I carried him outside, the cell phone cradled in my neck so I could keep talking. Each time his whining ceased the moment we re-entered the gently falling snow, and each time he started crying as soon as we came back inside.

Finally, I bundled him up and took him outside for a proper snow adventure. The snow's been on the ground since then and every day Feller and I have ventured out for a little while to play in the snow. It's funny, because both yesterday and today , he asked me to go out. He'd bring over his hat, saying "hat! hat!", and then his coat, and then his shoes, indicating that he wanted me to put them on. So we'd bundled up: snow pants, coat, woolen hat, and mittens, and head out into the snow.

The front yard. This photo was taken today, December 29.


He's having fun! Look for more snowy photos of the Little Feller as well as video on his blog. It is a private blog, so if you can't access it, e-mail me and I will invite you to become a member so that you can view it.

I know it's early in the season, and I'm sure I'll soon tire of the bitter temperatures. I know that the commute to work is going to be slower, and perhaps on some days impossible with the snow and ice that will surely continue in the next two or three months. And while I tend to have the same kind of unreasonable enthusiasm for a winter storm that I used to have for typhoons in Saipan--no school!--I dread the possible power outages and storm damage that could come with such an event. (In fact much of the rest of the United States experienced just such a winter disaster, with record snowfalls on the east coast the weekend before Christmas, and parts of the midwest and south blanketed this past week. The really bad weather completely skipped us here in Ohio). Despite all this, at least for now, I say let it snow, let it snow, let it snow here in America.


I made a snow angel for the first time in my life yesterday during one of our forays outside. This is another one I made today. Next up is a snowman, but the snow is too loose and powdery right now to get a good snowman going. With several months of winter to go, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities.