Our 4 Paws Adventure – Day 7

Today we practiced using just the hand signals for commands so we wouldn’t have to verbally command all the time. We also took some notes on tracking and received our Flexi Leash. It was all really important, but this post will probably end up being mostly pictures. I can’t stop looking at, taking pictures of, or talking about this snow. It is crazy beautiful. It’s probably going to spoil me for any kind of other wintry weather. This freshly fallen, powdery soft, heavy flakes kinda snow is what I’ll think of forever and ever until another 20 years goes by before I see it again!

Fell asleep between the window and the curtains while he watched the snow fall.

Last night, the view from our windows was mesmerizing. Which is saying a lot because our view is of a parking lot, office building, and then I-675 behind that. After we put the kids to bed, I ran out to the car to get our boots inside for the morning. When I started back, I saw that Caleb was peeking out of the window instead of sleeping. I couldn’t blame him in the least. So instead of correcting him, I threw a snowball at the window and watched him collapse in a giggle fit. He ended up falling asleep between the window and the curtains. That had to be an interesting sight for the guy clearing the sidewalks with that snow-be-gone machine thing. When he woke up this morning to find that the trucks had cleared the parking lot, I thought we were going to have the meltdown to end all meltdowns. He thought it had all melted and wouldn’t believe us that there was still more than enough snow for lots of fun. Tracking practice fixed that!

A covering of imperfections or a sea of nothingness and blah…What do you see?

It has continued to snow throughout today and will continue off and on all day tomorrow. I can’t believe how much the snow changes the way the landscape looks. On one hand, it looks like a fresh start with a clean slate and all the imperfections covered up with a pure white blanket. On the other hand, it can sometimes look like a bland and dreary nothingness. To my inexperienced eyes, it looks like the first scenario. I can totally understand, though, how it would look like a never-ending frozen blah if you’ve been dealing with it for six months.

For example, I guess I never really thought about how much longer it takes you to get the day started. If we didn’t have the handyman with the snow-be-gone thing, we’d have to be out early to shovel a path. Just like every other day, Jake walked the kids and April over to the lobby for breakfast while I loaded the car and then drove over to the front so we could easily scoot out when we were done. So I sent them on their merry way and I turned to the car. And stopped. And looked. And scratched my head. I couldn’t even find the door handles. There was at least four inches of snow waiting to fall in the seat as soon as I opened the door. Hmmm. How was this going to work? Just as I started attacking it with my hands and arms, wiping as much as I could into the parking lot, our classmate rounded the corner and just had to laugh a bit. He very politely offered me his snow brush scraper thing and just mentioned that “This might work a bit better.” He ended up scraping the windshield for me because, apparently, if I had continued on my way and just used the wipers, they would have frozen? Or something very negative. When I parked the car today, I noticed some cars with Ohio plates left their windshield wipers standing straight up. I have no idea what this does, but I assume they know what they’re doing so I copied them.

We are learning all sorts of snow stuff. Except the correct terms or names for anything, I guess. All I know is I’m so so happy for my rainboots. Especially during the tracking!! And once we leave the snow and head back to the Sunshine State, they’ll be ready for hurricane season…