Thursday, January 20, 2011

Getting To Know You Thursday......Snow Days, Best and Worst

I grew up in a small Arkansas town.  As the saying goes, "if you don't like the weather here in Arkansas, wait a day.  It's always changing."  It's been in the 50's all week, but today, it's snowing and sleeting outside. 

I remember as a child watching the weatherman on TV and hoping and praying for snow.  I would get up twenty times during the night and peek out the window to see if it was snowing. 


Photo from Google Images

Our school crossing guard told me the kids she grew up with used to turn their pajamas inside out because they thought it would bring snow.  I know many of you get TONS of snow and for y'all, I'm sure the excitement has worn off.  But here in Arkansas, we don't get snow very often so when we do, it's a BIG deal.  I am sure there are many excited kids who are hoping to be out of school Friday and Monday too as we are expecting more snow on Sunday and Monday.  All of this snow got me thinking about when I was little and what fun we would have in the snow. 

I was about twelve years old and school had been cancelled for the day.  Everything was covered in fluffy white snow.  We probably had about three inches on the ground, which is a lot for us.  Our yard was totally flat, as was our road.  There were no hills anywhere within walking distance either.  No hills and no sled equals no fun.  So, my family piled in my mom's car and all went over to our church to meet some of our friends.



This is our church.  This picture was taken from the bottom of the hill.  Nice hill, right?  But, we still didn't have a sled.  So what did we do?  We went into the church kitchen and hijacked a bunch of those HUGE restaurant grade cookie sheets to use as sleds.  We had such a great time sledding down that hill and hiking back up again.  My mom has pictures somewhere (actually they're in a big ole Rubbermaid tub still in the envelope.  Mom and I use the same photo storage system - HA!) of us all the bottom of the hill, in navy snowsuits clutching our cookie sheets, which were almost as big as we were.  That is my favorite snow day memory. 

Wanna here the worst snow day memory?  When I was about eight or nine, we lived in a VERY hilly neighborhood.  We had a huge hill right outside our house and I had one of these: 


Photo from Google Images

Sounds great right?  Bad thing was, I jumped the curb and ended up under my dad's van with a bloody face.  Luckily our neighbor heard me crying and carried me down the steps to our house.  NOT a good snow day memory. 

So, what's your favorite snow day memory?  What's your worst?  I know some of you get tons of snow and probably hate it now, but I know you have at least one great snow day memory to share!!  Let's here it!





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10 comments:

  1. My grandparents have a terraced back yard, so its like 6 mini hills that are evenly spaced out. They were a BLAST to sled on on our radio flyer sled. We got a lot of snow in Northwest AR growing up. We'd also build snow creatures and dye them with spray bottles filled with food coloring. Dragons, turtles, you name it!

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  2. LOL, I just can't imagine living in a place where snow wasn't common. I'd rather live in a warmer place, but I've lived in the Chicago my whole life. I used to love snow days off school when I was a kid. Don't have those anymore and we never ever get to stay home from work now!

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  3. I actually DO really love the snow...I'm just over it for this year!

    When I was little we used to go to my grandparents in Idaho for Christmas. I remember we would get HUGE long sheets of that Visqueen plastic - do you know what I'm talking about? Anyway we would tie them onto the back of my grandpa's snowmobile and all pile on like a train and hold on... He would pull us all over the farm. Loved those times!

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  4. Krav is SO much fun. I don't really get scared in the grocery store parking lot etc. anymore knowing that even if some guy is 300 pounds I know how to put him on his face and break his hands in about 2.5 seconds :)

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  5. Best? Oh, there are so many. Here's what I remember:

    I grew up in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. It took a good snowstorm to close the schools. I can remember sitting in the kitchen, listening to Bob Steele on the local radio announce school closings. He would list the schools, and whether they were open or closed. It seemed to us that he paused extra long for drama between the name of the school and the declaration.

    We would wait. He would say, "The Southern Berkshire Regional School District will be.......................................................... CLOSED today. Woohooo! We'd jump all about in our PJs. My mom (who was always home so there was no scramble for daycare back then) would make hot cocoa to celebrate as I recall. They would have a movie on the local TV station called the "Snowbound Special." There wasn't a lot of TV to offer back then so it was special to us.

    And we would play INSIDE usually. Snow was pretty common. Days off of school, notsomuch.

    Well, you asked. Chatty much, Debbie?

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  6. Worst? Last week when I lost two days pay for a bunch of stinking ice.

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  7. Love it!!! We had a blizzard one year and had several feet of snow with a thick sheet of ice on top. My friend Megan and I decided to slide down our VERY steep street in a sled just like yours. As our sled sailed out of control, we screamed to two kids we thought were our sisters (we were going so fast we couldn't tell it wasn't them) to call 9-1-1. When we hit the ditch at the end of the road, Megan flew over my head and we both woke up in the ditch, fine. I guess kids are resilient.

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  8. No snow days...ever!
    We have hurricane days. I'm sure you can imagine what we're doing on those days. We're stuck inside hoping a tree doesn't fall on the house. good times :)

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  9. Oh man - that memory hurt to read - ouch. I can't imagine. I grew up in NWA so we had a storm cellar. We used to sled off of it and across the yard - so much fun! Thanks for helping me remember!

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  10. Those are mostly great snowday memories! I remember loving snow once upon a time. Funny how kids love snow and adults don't. My favorite memories of snow are actually right now watching my two little ones enjoy the wonder of it all!

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