It was so cold this winter in Europe even the Black Sea froze in many coastal areas. How'd you like to wake up to scrape this off before work/.

Unless you live in Eastern Europe, it’s been the most mild winter I can recall.  I’m not complaining.

Actually, a little bit, I am complaining.  I generally like to play around in the snow a few times each winter with my kids.  We like to sled, build a snowman, and do a few snow angels every season.

This is what we DON’T necessarily like.

No thanks 2008 Winter, no thanks.

We also don’t like winters that drown on F-O-R-E-V-E-R.  I don’t like dirty grey snow on the sides of the roads. I don’t like canceling my plans for traveling due to poor road conditions, and I don’t like when my neighborhood streets are snowpacked and icy for weeks. And since this is my blog and I can say whatever I want I will also take this opportunity to say I DON’T like it when my neighbors snowblow their snow into the street.  I really hate it actually.

Anyway…none of those things happened this winter.  It was actually pretty lovely all winter.  I think it only snowed one time where we got enough snow to slide on.

As luck would have it, Wal-Mart had a huge overstock on their sledding equipment this season.  Imagine that?  We happen to be in the right place at the right time and got in on all the goods at clearance time.

We bought a fantastic wake board type sled that normally sells for around $45 for $8. It was amazing!  We also bought to flexible sleds, a disc sled and two snow seats all for LESS than $10.

We were so happy with our purchase and figured we’d get great use out of them next year.  Well…as luck would have it…It snowed that very night!  We woke up to a beautiful blanket of white covering everything!  It was only an inch of snow mind you, but still.

As part of our Monday morning routine, I drove by the world’s best sledding park on our way to where ever we were going.  The snow called to me.  I knew I had the new sleds in my car, still with tags from the store.  I thought for a moment…I thought maybe later we could all sled, but I KNEW if we waited, the snow would melt.

So…we piled out of the car, ripped the tags off the sleds and went for it.  It was amazingly fun.  So exhilarating and it only took about 20 minutes before everyone was satisfied and my kids thought I was the funnest, best mom in the whole world.

You might think this is the end of this post.  You’re wrong though because it snowed AGAIN the next night.  This time is snowed TWO WHOLE INCHES!

So back out we went the next day.  This time we did some recruiting and convinced some friends that two inches of snow was plenty!  We were a little later in the day and the snow was already melting.  The biggest hills were in direct sunlight and were already bare, so we settled for the smaller hills which was better for our smaller sledders.  Here’s Christy and her little Benson.  He was a first time sledder.  He loved it!

Then, for good measure at the end of all our fun, we built a snowman.

So next time you see a few inches of fun and think it’s not enough to play in or that you don’t have enough time…THINK TWICE.  It might all melt before you get back.   Sometimes you’ve got to take charge of your opportunities for fun and get while the gettins’ good.  Your kids will think you’re a ROCKSTAR.

Special thanks to Kristen, Christy and the Kid Posse for being such great sports and not complaining about having wet pants when we were done.

POST NOTE: Surprisingly, sledding is NOT on The List.  But I’m still counting it because A. I have these cute pictures and 2. Because it was super fun and D. Because this is my blog and I can count whatever I want.

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