White Christmas!

It snowed in Kansas on Christmas Eve and Gina and Abby wanted to see some of the white stuff. We loaded up on the day after Christmas and took off hoping the roads were passable to my parents’ place in southeast Kansas where they got 6-8 inches. The roads didn’t get dicey until we got into Kansas. We didn’t have any trouble until we turned into the driveway at Pleasant Hill Farm and promptly got stuck.

Abby had never seen snow before. (At least not that she could remember.) It would be a massive understatement to say that Abby LOVED THE SNOW in all caps. We got her into her hat and boots and she dove into the snow and rolled around and threw snowballs at everybody. She had so much fun that she didn’t notice how cold snow is. After about an hour she started crying about how her hands and feet hurt, but she still put up a fight over going inside to get warm. It was the first time she had ever gotten really, really cold.

Gramps got the snowplow stuck when he went out to free our car from the snowdrifts in the driveway.

That evening the legendary Team Jackass of geocaching fame set out on an epic sledding adventure. You may have heard about how flat it is in Kansas. Our first stop was on a gentle hill where a good pusher was needed to get the sleds going.

Then we got the idea to go out to the dam at Big Hill Lake, about 5 miles distant. The Corps of Engineers actually calls the area Kansas’ Little Ozarks, if you can believe that. Bingo! The highest spot in Labette County was sporting a deep layer of packed powder. I even got to fulfill my dream of sledding down one of those long concrete ditches you see on the sides of major roadways and dams. It wasn’t quite like the bobsled run I have imagined for many years, but it was pretty decent.

We moved on to the main run on the side of the dam. It was ingeniously designed as two levels with a short flat spot in between. That meant the chickens of the bunch (ahem, Jodie) could just go down the lower section and the brave could go to the top of the dam and cover both stretches. A giant flood light standing on top of the dam gave off just enough illumination so we could see to head in the right direction. The only danger was a couple of pipes sticking up through the ground at the bottom waiting to split a wayward sledder in half. But they were pretty spread out and Katie was the only one to get anywhere close.

It was full-on dark when we got there, so I left my camera in the car. Dumb idea. Gramps brought his camera though and caught Amy careening down the first slope onto the flat. It was pretty terrifying the first time you ran it. Think Clark Griswold and his amateur-recreational-saucer-sled-land-speed record. Abby and I made a couple of runs together down the bottom slope. On the second run she got a face full of snow when the nose of the sled dug in a little. She said she was ready to go home to Mama after that.

The next day we went out to see Grandma Dailey at the assisted living home. She gave Abby a beautiful book of Bible stories.

We worked in some Christmas activities, also. Abby got one of those wooden Thomas The Tank Engine train tracks and showed Gramps how to set it up.