It has been a very cold winter with lots of snow this year. The past 2 winters have been very mild. Last winter Brian only used a snowblower once. This year we've had lots of snow and it's been very cold. We have had snow on the ground most of the winter since it hasn't often gotten warm enough to melt much. It has been somewhat refreshing to have a real winter again for a change. The kids have had a lot of fun with it so far.
Early on this year, Brian decided to shovel the snow into a giant pile for the kids. He originally did this with Austin's help. The first few snows were only a few inches, so it was more reasonable to do. I say more reasonable because our driveway is still 100 feet long and two cars wide, so that's a lot of snow to move. He wanted to preserve the snow for them as long as possible knowing our limited snows last year. Eventually he ended up using the snow blower to blow it into the pile and it got bigger and bigger. Austin called it his snowman and would put a bucket on it that he called his hat. He also brought out carrots to put on eyes and ears.
The kids across the street built a giant snowman that was 7 feet tall. Austin went over to see it and helped a little and got his picture taken with them. They have been over to sled ride in our backyard at night with Austin and Sydney. They even played on the playground. The yellow slide was icy and was so fast that it would shoot them out the bottom a good 5-6 feet from the base. Sydney went down it twice and loved it. Apparently she has a need for speed. Austin did it once too.
We also made snow ice cream this year. One of the kids books mentioned it, so Brian looked it up online. You just mix sweetened condensed milk with snow and serve immediately. The kids helped scoop up some clean snow after we got a few inches one day and we made some. They both liked it. We had some too and it was good.
In addition to having regular snowfalls, it has been remarkably cold this year too. That has allowed the snow to pile up and never melt. Our temps have been the coldest in 20 years. Lake Erie froze solid for the first time in our lifetimes (last was 1979). We've had two waves of bitter cold with temperatures -10 F or colder with wind chills even colder. We've seen days where the high temperature was below zero! Fortunately both frigid periods were early in the work week when I was home with the kids, so I stayed inside. Brian worked. The one day leaving work, he said it was so cold you could feel the inside of your nose freeze when you inhaled (the temperature was close to -10 that day). The one night our wind chills were close to -40. Brian found it fun and played outside. He used an infrared thermometer to measure the temperature of the gutters on our house and they measured -40 F degrees. It was so cold, we actually had ice on the inside of our windows!
Brian also went outside and blew bubbles to watch them freeze. They would fly away and you would see them pop and little pieces of ice fall to the ground. During our first cold spell, it didn't occur to him to take pictures. He said it was also probably too windy. During our next cold spell, it was not as windy the one morning and temperatures were -12. We had clear skies, so Brian went outside and blew bubbles and took photos of them freezing on the hood of our car. He also took pictures of them frozen on the ground, but they were not as impressive since there wasn't good contrast against the white snow. He went into work late the one day and spent about an hour taking photos. He got some really cool photos of frozen bubbles. It was too cold and the kids were too little to go out with him, but they'll have so much fun with him doing these crazy things as they get older.
In the bubble photo below, I briefly went outside to help Brian. I blew bubbles while he took pictures. Most pop, but this one landed on the hood. Brian took this photo before it had completely frozen. You can see our reflection and the rising sun behind us. It's kind of cool.
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