Snow day(s)

We woke up yesterday to about 4-5 inches of snow on the ground, with the forecast of more to come. Much more, along with blustery winds. B'ville schools, along with most area school systems, called off school - probably more for what was expected than what we already had. After all, five inches of snow in central New York? What's the big deal?

It snowed quite steadily most of the day and with temperatures just above freezing, it was wet, heavy snow. Aidan and I went out after lunch to shovel and play. Okay, so I was the only one who shoveled.

Note: With our house in Georgia still not sold, we are renting a two bedroom end unit in an older house. There are three apartments in the house and while a plow service takes care of clearing our drive and parking area, we the residents are responsible for our walkways to the parking area and the sidewalk in front of the house. There is an unspoken agreement between us and the family on the other end of the house that we take turns clearing the entire sidewalk. The guy on the end often uses his little snowblower or their teenage son shovels, and then I shovel a lot, but the young woman in the middle must think that elves magically clear the sidewalk.

Aidan went to the backyard to play. The snow plow pushes all the snow to the back of the parking area, just into the yard, making a huge pile of snow. Aidan played with his snow/sand castle making forms:


When I finished shoveling, I made a small snow person to stand atop the snow hill:


Aidan came over to make the acquaintance of the snow person:


The rate of snowfall increased during the day. It snowed into the evening, and we woke up to another 12-15 inches of snow this morning. B'ville schools initially were going to delay opening by two hours, then later closed completely. The village street in front of our house was clear but driveways and parking lots were buried.

The mountain of snow at the back of our parking area grew even more after this morning's plowing:


Yes, that is Aidan atop our mini mountain. And the snow person from yesterday is nowhere to be seen...

They have sticks and they know how to use them

One of the reasons that we wanted to move back to a university town was to take advantage of the athletic and cultural events that universities offer. On Sunday, we went to our second Syracuse University sporting event when we watched the SU women's lacrosse team play Stanford University.

Neither James nor I know the first thing about lacrosse except that the object of the game is to put your team's ball into the other team's goal, and that a lacrosse stick is used to catch, carry, and pass the ball. I still don't know much about the game except that it is fast, and great fun to watch. The players were practically a blur as they ran full speed up and down the field, which is why I have no clear action shots of the game!

Here is the SU team just prior to the start of the game:


We were very pleased to see the Orange win:


Did I mention that this afternoon of great sporting spectating fun was free? Admission was free, even parking at the Carrier Dome was free. And you can't beat free with a stick, even a lacrosse stick.