Coldstone's got nothin' on us!

So, at precisely 8:00 last night it started to snow, like first it wasn't there, then there were three inches out there. That kind of snow. Which out here in Colorado Springs goes by the name of "Spring Snow". It's still cold, it still fills up our driveway, and it still blows into huge drifts in the back yard, the only difference, as far as I can tell, is that it comes after the 21st of March and in far larger quantities than plain old winter snow (WTF?!).

Being that it is in fact spring, I decided to use this snow day as a spring cleaning day, after all, it is a "Spring Snow" Day. I rearranged the play room (also known as the front living room to those of you that don't have kids that necessitate an entire room full of toys) and did a good clean on it. Read: down on hands and knees scrubbing the scum off the base boards, and removing a build-up of crayon that seems to have spread beyond the dining room (A.K.A. the art room... My house is like one big homey classroom). The great thing about having a three year old daughter? You can convince her that the Magic Eraser really is magic and if she scrubs at stuff it's like being Cinderella (bonus points for having the costume on hand so she can truly dress the part). Maybe life with two really is getting easier.

Once I got bored with cleaning (and that didn't take long) we decided to use the "Spring Snow" to make Ice Cream ala Paula Deen. I remember doing this as a kid while babysitting in South Dakota and it being yummy and figured that if I could make it back then, now should be no issue... thankfully, I was right.

Now, I mentioned before that it was cold out there and I really didn't want to get all bundled up for the 15 foot trudge across the back yard for the snow that hasn't already been yellowed. So I sent my kid. She likes any excuse to put her boots on, also, please note her cooking apron since again, in the spirit of dressing the part and this was a kitchen activity, said apron must be worn.

She got two of the required eight cups of snow before I was bundled up to trudge the 15 feet. Dang It!

Add to the eight cups of snow, one can of Sweetened Condensed Milk and a teaspoon of vanilla...

...Stir, and serve.

Haley was all kinds of interested in stirring it, but when it came time to taste, she just couldn't get over the idea that it was made of snow, and I couldn't have paid her to try some. The Dude on the other hand LOVED it.

He loved it A LOT!

Ate it like I've never seen him eat ice cream (or maybe he just wanted to participate, his sister might not hold out on this forever). In the spirit of a snow day full of spring cleaning, we ate it straight from the bowl sitting on the floor. What was left we packaged into little Ziploc containers and we'll see how well it freezes and stores. Haley jumped back into things to help me take the containers and put them in the fridge.

Then it was time for the clean-up crew to go to work. Mission accomplished. It was super yummy and well worth keeping a can of sweetened condensed milk on hand in the future.

Hoppy Easter!

I think it's safe to say that Easter and the Easter Bunny was a huge hit here at our house. Haley talked all about him the night before, especially after we told her that he would bring her presents (that's my girl!). When she woke up, she right away started to look for eggs and then saw her basket and went to town.

The first egg she found that morning.

Dude-a-man digging through his basket. Yes, it's a Tonka truck.

All dressed and ready for church, she loves her brother!

My too cute little girl.

My super handsome little man.

One of our other Easter Morning surprises was a bunch of snow. It was pretty slick when we left for church, but by the time church let out, we were only about 5 miles up the road and it took us 20 minutes to get home. It was snow man snow too so Jeff built one for the kids in the front corral.

Mommy and the Dude-a-Man

This is a big chunk of our Easter Basket opening - beware, it's a 6 minute movie.

Now That's a Real Friend!

We're finally getting our fence put in! This is a great day because the poor puppies have had to live with a tiny 15x15 foot chicken wire enclosure off the back porch when we actually own a bit more than a 1/4 acre. But that's not the purpose of this post.

We met Bill and Crystal before they were married when we were just newlyweds ourselves (actually, Jeff has known Bill since the Academy, but as friends, that goes back to 2003). Bill and Jeff were "Crew Partners" at Vandenberg (no, that's not a metaphor for anything) where they did all of their missileer training. We've since followed each other to Montana, and now here to Colorado. In fact, they live just diagonally behind us here (or, within stumbling distance). We truly don't know what we would do without them as our friends - they let us live in their basement for about 3 months while we waited for our house to be done, and now, Bill's been back from deployment for about 2 weeks (and is still climitazing) however, he volunteered to come over and help us put our fence in. The weather this weekend was below freezing and even snowing at times (so cold that there are still 2 holes that couldn't be dug because the ground was too frozen for the auger to go through).

As up and down as life is in the Air Force sometimes, were it not for it, we would never have met such great lifelong friends.

Bill and Jeff (fighting the frozen hose) to cement the fence post in while it snows.

TEN inches of snow!

We got home on Saturday and it started snowing while we were up in Denver, we woke up Sunday morning to about 2 inches of snow and still coming. By Sunday night we were in the midst of our first Colorado Snow! If only we had my rock bustin' skis and Atlas! Here are just a couple of pictures from our evening in the backyard of Bill and Crystal's house.

Seriously, is this not the cutest little snow bunny in the world? I learned that when your kid is as bundled up as the little brother in "A Christmas Story", it's a little difficult to take a good picture.
This yard stick shows how deep the snow was in a pristine part of the yard. This was at the earlier part of the evening.