Hazardous snow

On a Thursday morning the week before Halloween we woke up to a winter wonderland. It was raining when we went to sleep and when we woke up, it had turned to snow! Elliott and I were so excited that we skipped breakfast and donned our snow gear and were ready to play by 9 am.

 It wasn't a lot of snow and we wanted to play in it before it rained it away or melted. First Elliott made some tracks.

 Then I blew up a sled and took him for a ride over to the neighbors.

 They were as excited as we were and Lindsay and Marisa were out playing in the snow too.

 It was perfect snow for rolling out a snowman and since it was still before Halloween we made it a snow-witch complete with coconut bra. Elliott didn't want the hat on and kept saying, "No witch. Snowman!" But it was still fun.

 Lindsay showed Elliott how to make snow angels and he did a fantastic job!

 The finished masterpiece!

SNOWBALL FIGHT!

 All the kids ganged up on Tammy.

 Then we took a wagon ride around the block and finally had to go inside to warm up since Marisa was freezing! But we had yummy hot chocolate at Tammy's house to end a perfect morning of playing in the snow. 

 The snow came with consequences though. We have lots of trees that haven't lost their leaves yet. In fact, our leaves hadn't even started changing color yet. So wet, heavy snow sticking to all the leaves had our branches almost touching the ground. And for one major limb, it was too much. It snapped and broke!

 It feels as if a quarter of the tree came down and I was grateful it didn't land on the house or porch.

 I was concerned that it would take a chain saw to clean it up and I was afraid of borrowing one and using it myself. And wouldn't you know, Brian's dad Arden who is the master of all tools, was leaving town for a week and we couldn't beg for his help. Luckily Brian has a great co-worker/lumberjack who came over early Saturday morning to help us clear out. Elliott woke up after we started and he watched from inside as we helped Tim. 

 What a cutie peering out!

 Tim working away on the branches and Brian standing by to drag them out of the way. 

 Now the tree is awfully lop-sided and hopefully it won't tip over the other way before we have a chance to trim it up a bit. So sad to lose shade in the yard!

Nature should follow a natural order and have Autumn before Winter. Things just work out better that way.