Easter Weekend

I thought I had posted this... whoops. It was sitting in the list of posts as a draft. The contrast between how much snow there was Easter weekend to now (a month later) is incredible! 

We got on skype to chat with Joe's sister and her family while they were outside. All the flowers, green grass, and tree climbing filled our hearts with longing. We love Alaska very much but it is just so hard sometimes. It was Easter though and we have so so much to be grateful for... so we went outside too.

During the hottest points in the day the temperature has been between 30 and 40 ABOVE! We are melting... and so is everything else. The snow, in undisturbed places, is thigh high on the adults and waist deep on the kids despite how much has melted already. The top layer of snow is nice and crispy. As soon as you put your weight down on it you fall a foot or more into the seemingly s

turdy ground. So we decided to play a trick on the kids and have a race across the undisturbed snow to the trees. Eventually we blazed a path all the way to the back of our house. I walked behind Molly and I am pretty sure that, although Joe broke the majority of the trail, I had it tough too. Molly walked with her hands out to the side pushing on the walls of the path which made all the sugary snow fall in behind her... where I was walking. What a punk! She thought it was hilarious!

The snow is perfect for snowball making. I mean PERFECT! Normally it is too dry to smash together. Our snowmen, until this point, have looked like large ant hills. Macy was a pro at packing the snow down and made one perfectly round adorable snowball... and guarded it with her life. If you look closely you will see it in the bottom of some of the family photos unless she is holding it. Molly is easy to overlook and is a great sneak which works to her advantage in a snowball fight. I think she hit Gavin more than Joe did! She could walk right up in front of him, throw a fist full of snow in his face, and run away before anyone knew she was even nearby!

We also did a bit of exploring. We walked down to the river to see if it was breaking up yet. While there is plenty of holes in the ice where water is starting to reappear there is still plenty of thick ice... so we went out on it. We wouldn't have taken our chances but as soon as we made it down to the river a young man on a snow machine started heading our way from up river. He had to be approaching at about 40 mph and could clearly see us but didn't slow down. Instead, he went off the trail into lots of fresh snow and zig zagged through it tossing lots of snow into the air. It was quite a show and the kids were amazed! Who am I kidding... I loved it too!

The river also turned out to be the best place for a family photo. (We had tried behind the house but the snow was so deep I didn't make it into the photo a few times... I was probably flat on my face in the snow just outside of the frame!)

We took a couple paths we had never been down and looked for animal tracks. We ended up in the village cemetery at one point. It is beautiful. Most of the sites are marked with little picket fences... which made sense because you could hardly see anything except the tops of crosses poking through the snow. The kids pointed out tiny bird tracks, raven tracks, rabbit tracks, and another animal we suspect was linx. We didn't see any bear tracks thankfully. I am not sure when to expect them. I suspect we will hear about it when they awake.

It was such a beautiful, bright, and joyful day. Much more than we expected. We missed our families, friends, and church so much. As it turns out, reading the Easter story with your children at home and playing in the snow is also a wonderful way to celebrate the One who died for us and rose again. I am so blessed to have my family and to live in a place where God's creation is evident everywhere you look.