Snow Day Traditions

What a great unexpected surprise... A snow day!  No school today!  Brings back all those memories of when I was a kid and we had snow days.  We would get our sleds out and bust some drifts.  It seems crazy but the best drifts were the ones alongside the road.  So, we would take our sleds and down into the road we would go! But, back then when there was a snow day it meant that everyone stayed home.  No one was on the roads.  Today when there is a snow day that means everyone heads to town. 
I can remember one year that we had an ice storm and lost power for a week.  At that time we were raising hogs.  We had hundreds of them and without power that meant no water for the livestock.  So, the local fire department brought in their water tanker to water the hogs.  If they hadn't done that we would have lost our only source of income. 
My Grandma and Grandpa lived way back off the road.  You had to drive along the creek, up a steep hill and through the pine trees to get to their house.  Our grandpa had a toboggan that was taller than me. I have two sisters and one brother... we would all get on that toboggan with Grandpa and down the driveway we would go straight for the creek bank but somehow he would manage to get that huge sled to turn sharp to the left and we would glide along the creek never going in. Grandpa would hoot and holler all the way down the hill as if we were on some amusement park ride.  Our noses were rosy red from the cold, our feet were cold and damp because the bread bags inside our boots were not holding up so good.  Inside Grandma would be getting hot cocoa ready so that it was waiting for us. 
Since we lived on a farm there was always a lot of work to do no matter what day it was or how bad the weather was but these simple fun family moments are what I remember from my childhood. 
So of course when my kids had a snow day they would be outside all day building snow forts, having snowball fights, sledding down the barn grade hill, and we would pull them around on a sled behind our snowmobile.  After they were exhausted but fulfilled I would make hot cocoa and laugh about the day.  That was over twenty years ago!
This Sunday the step grandchildren (Kassen and Audrie ) were over.  We made some crafts, went sledding, made snow angels and had hot cocoa.  Now, I can show my step grandchildren the same kind of simple fun that will hopefully stick with them like it did with me.
Only now we do NOT go sledding down the drifts into the road. Some things you have to accept that they are changed!
Wise five year old Audrie told me Sunday "I wished we didn't have to grow up"
"Me Too" I replied.  but in some ways there is a bit of a child in all of us :)