A real "Snow" day

In the past two weeks we've had 4 "snow days" and only one of them actually produced any of the white fluffy stuff.  It was Wednesday, in the middle of the night,  when the 30% chance of snow actually produced something....4 inches on the ground!  The boys were beyond thrilled and we totally took advantage.  Jared and I were both free from teaching that day so as soon as the luge of a driveway was plowed by our good neighbor, we had the truck packed with ski gear, thermals and ski pants were on, and lunch was packed.   We drove a quick 40 minutes to Wintergreen Ski Resort to find that we would be 6 of about 100 other skiers on the slopes.  We basically felt like we had much of the mountain to ourselves.  Never waiting in a line, never worrying about some crazed boarder busting down the slopes, never worrying about anything but keeping up with Jonah, who insisted on racing me twice and won each race.  I told him he was crazy to which he responded, "why do you make turns mom, you should just go straight down like I do!"  Crazy!

Jonah and I stopped for a break from the bitter cold in the small ski shack and Caleb found us in there warming up by the wood stove.  While I went to the bathroom apparently a man who had overheard me tell the boys that we'd get hot chocolate when Dad joined us (he was skiing double black diamonds with Gavin and Liam) offered the boys $20.  Caleb said he graciously refused, so the man handed it to Jonah who eagerly took it!  Oh, I wish I could have watched from a distance that whole exchange :)  When I came out the man was gone, but we enjoyed some nice hot cocoa thanks to a stranger.  We talked about paying it forward and are now on the look out for someone to help out.

When we finished up about 5:30 Gavin was in tears at the parking lot because he was so stinking cold and I looked at the car temperature gage and it said it was 14 degrees!!!  So very,very cold for those of us whose blood has  thinned after leaving the cold of MN and UT 6 years ago.  Even Jared said he was very cold in the hands and feet, which says a lot because he never seems to be bothered by sub-freezing temps while skiing.  After warming up the car and getting the gear loaded, we headed down to Nellysford (Nelson county) to grab something to eat.  Jared was hot on the idea of a house made root beer at one of the 3 local brew pubs.  We stopped at Wild Wolf Brewery and had a wonderful meal that included local veggies and meats and to top it off they had live music that night from a trio of guitar, banjo, and upright bass, not to mention a great root beer whose recipe was top secret.  The manager told us he doesn't even know what goes into the magic beverage despite having asked the brew master himself.

On the drive home we sang aloud to the latest installment of cousin Spencer's mixed CD and we all agreed that this was the best "snow day" ever!

Warming up in 14 degrees

Jonah and Gavin

Thank you stranger for the cocoa!