A day in the snow, Washington style

One of the days we were at Joseph's brother's house in Chewelah, WA, everyone was out of the house except for the kids and myself. It had been snowing the day before, and now the ground was covered with soft, wet snow, so different from the dry freezing snow of South Dakota. On top of that, the temperature was in the balmy 40's!

We just had to go out. Elora, who is always up for adventure, was thrilled. She was running around, climbing trees and exploring.



Joshua was ready to go back in after five minutes, but I just ignored him. In between the times where he whined about going inside the house, he entertained himself by walking around and looking at things in the yard.



Jonah, too, isn't a big fan of winter. He is always excited about going outside, but hates walking on the uneven snow, and after falling in it a few times, he wasn't very happy. While he spent most of the time sitting in the snow and crying, he did pause a few times to taste some of the refreshing snow.

I tried to get a picture of him with his sad face, but every time he noticed me with the camera, he'd stop crying and in a confused voice he'd say, "cheese?" It was so cute.



While the boys sulked, Elora and I made some snowmen; its the first time all winter we've had the right kind of snow, and its been warm enough to be out in it! There were no big sticks lying around, so we used some long weeds for hair and arms, and leaves for eyes and mouths.



When we had finished the snowmen, I decided it was time to go walk around the pretty field right next door. The fog and low-lying clouds were there almost every day we were there, it was beautiful! Josh temporarily forgot he was grumpy as he played around the fence posts.



And I was my usual dorky self trying to get a cool self-portrait:



Then it was time for a group picture in front of the fantastic scenery! Jonah thankfully stopped crying again when I held up the camera.....




but then Elora took off....




followed by Joshua...



and poor little Jonah wasn't happy about that at all! I only felt a little guilty for thinking the whole sequence of pictures about it were pretty funny, at least in retrospect.



We were very lucky to have such a beautiful day together!