Best. Winter. Ever.

Two days ago, we got dumped with snow while we were fast asleep.  The weather people had predicted a light dusting, if anything at all.  But to our surprise, when we awoke the next morning, four inches of fresh snow covered Newberg, and it was still snowing!  We woke the girls up, fed them a quick breakfast and got bundled up to go sledding.  There's a small hill at Crater Elementary School playground, so we rushed over to be the first ones to make sledding tracks in the fresh powder. After about an hour of sledding, we hurried back home to make a snowman.  Our neighbors beat us to the punch and were starting to build one in the middle of the cul-de-sac, so the girls joined in.  All the while, Benji decided to build a huge snow cave, reminiscent of his outdoor survival classes in Colorado.  Soon, Tyson and his boys were helping Benji and the girls harvest snow from the circle to pack on the cave.  After lunch and breaks for hot cocoa, Dadda finally dug out an opening in the cave.  And by dinner time, the whole was so big that Sophie, Faith and McKinley could all crawl in together.  At the end of the day we had accumulated two more inches of snow, making it a whopping total of six inches.  Around the state, though, some snow records were broken. Portland and Beaverton received about twelve inches and had three days of school being cancelled.  The snow stuck around the next few days, as temperatures only rose above freezing during the afternoon sunshine.  And the small amount of sun put a nice, thick glaze of ice on the snow cave, which now looks more like a mountain of ice.  The girls, including the neighborhood kids, have been sledding down it repeatedly.  Some even getting a few bumps and bruises, like McKinley.  She has three ice burns on her face and a small welt underneath her eye.  The weather people are predicting rain for next week, and eventually the snow cave will melt, but for now the girls are having the time of their lives enjoying this cold, winter weather!