The Freeze and the Melt

First it was cold.  Then it snowed.  And it snowed well, (at least for this far south).  Then it did the "wintery mix" dance.  You don't know what a, "wintery mix" is?  That's okay, I didn't either.  It's when you think it's snowing, but when you stand out in, you can feel something distinctly un-snowlike hitting you.  Snow is soft; snow is friendly.  Wintery mix pretends to be snow and if you're not paying attention, it will fool you.  It's snow's naughty brother.

Then it stopped doing anything and all was quiet.  A few hours later, it changed its mind and started up again.  That went on for a while.  Then it stopped altogether.  All in all, it was rather nice.  We don't get a lot of winter weather here.  An occasional snow storm (with intermixed wintery-ness) is nice from time to time. 

It stayed cold overnight and the next morning there was fun for all those who like to play in cold, white precipitation.  My neighbor's son tried to build an igloo.  He ran into the problem so many of us do when we take on this project in the southern states...lack of snow to build a roof.  Sure, he had a plan, and with fifteen more inches of snow, I'm sure he could have pulled it off.  But then it started to get warm.

We have a large party we're hosting tomorrow at our house.  Normally, I would want the coldness, freezing temperatures, terrible driving conditions and all things winter storm-like to take days to resolve, but in this case, it needed to get warm fast.

And it did.  Today it got close to fifty degrees and all the frozen stuff fell off the trees and turned to slush.  The drains were under attack with freshly-melted ice and snow and the amount of whiteness visible was dropping by the hour.  Tomorrow, only large piles of snow will be left.  

The Big Boy Update:  The Motorcycle.  My son doesn't know how to pedal a tricycle, but he can ride the heck out of his motorcycle.  He loves it so much he wanted to ride it in the snow.  It doesn't ride well in snow, but he didn't care.  He wanted to sit on it and watch the flakes fall.  Today, he rode it around the melting snow and ice clumps and used the big front wheel to crush through larger piles.  He came inside wet and happy.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  The Tricycle.  My daughter loves to pedal her tricycle.  She goes into our garage several times each day, regardless of how she's dressed, and pedals her tricycle around and around the cars.  She is always happy when she's doing this.  She has no interest in the balance bike or the balance motorcycle my son loves, but then again, he doesn't care about her tricycle either, and that's the way she likes it.