In yesterday's post, I said I'd add some photos from this past weekend. Turns out I didn't have as many as I thought I'd want to post. So here's a fun one from Saturday...
Here are the kids & me, with Anita and Flat Stanley* (see below) outside the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort in Flagstaff on Saturday.
One of the really great things about Arizona is that it has a wide variety of terrain, geography and weather. There are areas of high altitude that see some serious winter, similar to the Upper Peninsula winters we remember so well. So while we live in the desert, we only have to drive two hours north to see snow.
Our kids (and Matt, too, I think) were missing snow. With great timing, Flagstaff got dumped on last week, so we joined the pilgrimage north to see snow. Matt's brother Mark (who hadn't seen snow since they left Michigan 10 years ago) & his wife, Anita, caravaned up with us.
I have been rather cynical about snow, remembering all too well the long, cold, windy winters by Lake Superior. Winters that seemed they would never end. (Imagine wind so strong that the snow fell horizontally!)
But I--yes, even I--enjoyed driving north into the snow! Picture this: Christmas music playing on the radio, excited kids asking if we could stop & play in the snow, me working on Christmas cards in the front seat. As we increased in altitude, at one point we suddenly found ourselves in a winter wonderland!
It was a perfect, pristine, Christmas-card sort of snow. Perfect for the weekend before Christmas. And a very fun surprise for the kids, who didn't know where we were going. They *loved* it! We went to the ski lodge & had hot chocolate, had a snowball fight & built a snowman together. It was fun, even with the wet jeans and cold hands & feet.
In other snow-related news, I am quite thankful for a very snowy Marquette winter so far. We have had a steady flow of guests at our Marquette house, doing the very same thing we did on Saturday--heading north to the snow! This morning, I got a call for a group of six from Milwaukee planning to ski just after New Year's Day.
And this helps us pay the bills. So I am very thankful for snowy U.P. winters today! :)
Here are the kids & me, with Anita and Flat Stanley* (see below) outside the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort in Flagstaff on Saturday.One of the really great things about Arizona is that it has a wide variety of terrain, geography and weather. There are areas of high altitude that see some serious winter, similar to the Upper Peninsula winters we remember so well. So while we live in the desert, we only have to drive two hours north to see snow.
Our kids (and Matt, too, I think) were missing snow. With great timing, Flagstaff got dumped on last week, so we joined the pilgrimage north to see snow. Matt's brother Mark (who hadn't seen snow since they left Michigan 10 years ago) & his wife, Anita, caravaned up with us.
I have been rather cynical about snow, remembering all too well the long, cold, windy winters by Lake Superior. Winters that seemed they would never end. (Imagine wind so strong that the snow fell horizontally!)
But I--yes, even I--enjoyed driving north into the snow! Picture this: Christmas music playing on the radio, excited kids asking if we could stop & play in the snow, me working on Christmas cards in the front seat. As we increased in altitude, at one point we suddenly found ourselves in a winter wonderland!
It was a perfect, pristine, Christmas-card sort of snow. Perfect for the weekend before Christmas. And a very fun surprise for the kids, who didn't know where we were going. They *loved* it! We went to the ski lodge & had hot chocolate, had a snowball fight & built a snowman together. It was fun, even with the wet jeans and cold hands & feet.
In other snow-related news, I am quite thankful for a very snowy Marquette winter so far. We have had a steady flow of guests at our Marquette house, doing the very same thing we did on Saturday--heading north to the snow! This morning, I got a call for a group of six from Milwaukee planning to ski just after New Year's Day.
And this helps us pay the bills. So I am very thankful for snowy U.P. winters today! :)
*Flat Stanley is a character from a book of the same name, about a boy who accidentally gets flattened and then goes to visit faraway friends via the postal service. Our friends in Vermont sent us Flat Stanley, a school project of a friend of theirs in lower Michigan. Flat Stanley will soon be going on his way to Washington State. But first, he had to see both saguaro and snow in Arizona!
3 comments:
I think everyone who, at least sometimes, gets snow has been dumped on the last few days! We have had almost 3' fall in the past week or so with another 5-10" due today! Jason & I were watching the weather last night and the weatherman put up the snowfall totals for areas around Michigan so far this season. We are less than 10" behind Marquette! That surprised me! We might even end up catching up to them today!! It sure it beautiful, but it's hard to travel and shovel out of!
Hi Rachel!
Thanks for commenting. :) I totally agree with you about the snow being beautiful, but not so great for travelling & having to shovel it. I remember those years all too well...
That's why I am *so* thankful to live here in the land of no snow. It works pretty nicely to play in the snow for a while, then come back here where we don't have to deal with it 24/7.
I guess maybe we have the best of both worlds (at least in the wintertime)...
I hope you had a Merry Christmas!! Many Blessings for the upcoming year.
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