Snow! Olympics! Chinese New Year!

What a whirlwind of fun!  I can't stop with the exclamation marks!  They are my puncuation weakness!  L!O!V!E! T!H!E!M!

Is my exuberance hard to understand?  Let me explain...Early dismissal Thursday because of the SNOW!  NOT ice, mind you.  Honest to goodness, hardly ever see it, snow. 

There was much pelting.

A lot of snowflake sampling.  Papa even made us his rare winter speciality--snow ice cream.  How long has it been....

Emily loved the snow, even in the form of flying snow balls.  She kept burying her nose in it.  Her squirrel buddy holed up somewhere and ditched her for a couple of days.

We were supposed to start three hours late Friday, but the phone rang just as I was getting up with the most blessed pre-recorded message any teacher can hear--SNOW DAY!!!

We were already up, so out we went.

I've heard we were a little short of the 1964 county record...but look at all the snow!  I know, I know...I've lived in northern Minnesota, but everything's relative.  And to us, in north central Texas, this is a lot of freakin' snow!

I've taken a ridiculous number of snow pictures.  I'm thinking of having window clings made out of them...to put up for next Christmas.  Sort of a winter wonderland fake out.  Of course, we did have a icy/snowy Christmas eve/morning this last year.  But what are the odds?  Especially with global warming (that one's for you, Loverboy!  Did your head explode?  HA!)

Where to begin?

Snow angels!  With a puppy pawprint border.

And serious snow men.  Not the ones we usually have to settle for...made with snow collected from the top of Loverboy's car.  Granted, these are not the cleanest snow people.  Quite a bit of leaves and grass burrs.  And my technique is very rusty.  But still...

Little Miss was thrilled.  I can't help wondering when she'll ever get a chance for snow play like this again.

Loverboy and Emily were exhausted from all the fun.

So everyone was tucked in early Friday night. leaving me to watch the Olympic opening ceremonies.  I'm a sucker for the Olympics.  I haven't seen any medal ceremonies yet, so I haven't gotten much good crying in yet.  But I have found several blogs about Olympic knitting, or Knitlympics, or variations on the theme.  Cast on during the opening ceremonies and knit along as you watch.  I didn't officially join in any.  Most want you to work on a challenging project, and I don't have any I'm stocked and ready to go with.  BUT, I do have a sock kit that's been hanging around for five years...almost as long as Little Miss is old.  I've knit lots of socks before, so it's not a technical challenge.  The challenge is just to actually start it...and get it done.

I'll be honest.  I bought it for the tin.  I'm a sucker for packaging.  Plain Jane, olive wool men's socks--a repro WWII "knit your bit" kit from the American Red Cross.  But I'm in!  It's easy enough that I can still watch the moguls and pairs skating and not miss any of the wipeouts action.

Today's Valentine's Day--and that's great and all.  Loverboy, Little Miss and I are lovey-dovey anyway,  so handmade cards, or one purchased for Little Miss with golden retrievers on it, was plenty to mark that holiday for us.  None of us need anymore chocolate.  BUT today is also Chinese New Year!  Yeah!  Another new year--I need to re-resolve a few things (Weight Watchers, ahem).  So we feasted on egg rolls, pork dumplings, sweet and sour chicken, chicken/vegetable stir fry, fried rice, almond cookies, and those (evil) delicious nutella wontons--with cherries added.  Another holiday where I try to kill myself with five hours in the kitchen.  The upshot is I'm so sick of the food that I don't eat that much...except the cookies and nutella/cherry wontons. 

Molly and Papa joined us. 

I'm not sure what traditional Chinese gifts are--but Anne got ZhuZhu pets.  I could open a Toys R Us in my living room.

Oh! And this is all that was left of our amazing snow as of this morning...

...they'll be back again...someday...