(no subject)

Our backyard is one continuous snow packed, ice sheet. The girls are out their sliding around like they are on a skating rink. It is crazy. Mari just flung herself down on her stomach and slid about twenty feet. I can't believe they are out there. I've been telling them all day that it was too cold to go out. They really don't have the heavy duty warm clothes for this kind of weather. We've lived in the south for too long. But Brad, of course, told them they could go out while he tries to "shovel" the driveway. He needs a pickax not a shovel. That is the hardest ice I've ever seen at my home in my life. I can hear him banging on the ice out there. We have to get it cleared off though because our driveway is a hill and both of us had a terrible time trying to drive up it today. It took me six tries before I made it back into the garage after gymnastics. There was absolutely no traction. It reminded me of driving on a glacier on our honeymooon in those huge glacier tour busses. I need tires like that! The roads are fairly clear, but because this stuff keeps melting a little and then freezing up again overnight, it is pretty scary. I hate ice. Snow is nice. Ice, not so much.

ETA: I just had to grab the video camera and run outside because Brad was pushing the girls, sitting on their bums, down the front yard hill (YES, the YARD, not the driveway) like shuffle board pieces. They FLY down the hill! What a hilarious slide! I can't believe my front yard is a smooth packed sheet of ice! I spent most of my childhood in KS so I've seen winter before, but I've spent most of the 14 years of my adulthood in the south so this just seems weird!