A Snow Cave for the Kids

I don't think I can express how happy I am that school started up again last week. What was I thinking having three kids?! They wear me out! The time between Christmas and the start of school was hard on everyone this year. Perry and I both had colds, and to top it off, I worked a few night audit shifts at the hotel right as I was coming down with it. That was rough. I was exhausted! 

 But I wasn't the only one...We found Hunter sleeping on the stairs twice in the same week. The first night, the gate was closed so we were unable to open it to wake him up. A few nights later I found him here when I was going to get ready for bed. "I fell asleep on the stairs and I woke up in my bed!"

 Luckily over Christmas it snowed a bunch! Not quite like the year before, but enough for Perry to start building the boys a snow cave under their playset. It took them, no, it took Perry an entire day, plus some to gather snow from all over the yard. By the end of the day, the boys were able to go sledding down it. Charlotte went once and thought that was enough for her!

 Yesterday after church, Perry took the kids outside to actually start digging the cave out. Last Sunday night/Monday morning, we had freezing rain so there was a layer of ice on everything when I went to shovel Monday morning. That was rough! And then throughout the week everything thawed and froze multiple times, so the cave has snowy/ice walls. After a good hour of working on it yesterday though, Perry was able to dig a hole big enough for both of the boys to fit inside. 

 JP had far too much fun playing outside while Perry did all the hard work.

And then Hunter somehow lucked out and was able to eat his lunch inside the cave! And as I type, Hunter is out there beating it with a stick trying to get large snow chunks off of it to eat...

The last time Perry built a snow cave was 7 years ago, almost exactly! It was one of the first things Perry and I did together. We had intentions of sleeping in it, but we forgot to bring a tarp to lay down, so few hours in, the three of us were wet and cold. We packed up and hi-tailed it out of the woods in a matter of minutes. (We were paranoid about mountain lions!)