Snow day!

Edith and I had been rooting for another snowstorm as in December, and we got it this past weekend--though not like our relatives to the south. This was one of those storms that really tapered off toward the edges, and while Mom-mom and Pop-pop were stranded in blizzard-like whiteout conditions in Delaware and Philly got 28 inches, we got about 9, and our friends a bit north of here on the Garden State Parkway got 2 inches.

But it was good for one day's worth of enforced family time at home, for which we were grateful. With the YWCA closed and Tom's Saturday teaching obligations canceled, he and I took turns spelling each other with the kids for a rare morning of sleeping late.

Tom went in to do some hospital visitation around noon, just as Alice went down for a nap, and Edith and I built a town out of scrap cardboard and milk jugs before getting to work on her Valentines. (I cut out the construction paper hearts; she addressed and signed them.)

Sometime in the afternoon, Edith asked out of the blue whether she could get herself an engagement ring, since Torrey seemed to be taking a long time about it. That led to her planning her wedding more extensively, a conversation for which I got out the video recorder at the tail end.

After spending most of the day in the house, we finally roused ourselves when Tom got home from work and went to check out what Edith's babysitter had long described as the perfect little sledding hill behind her house. We called over first to make sure it was okay to take them up on their invitation to check it out, and Claire and her parents all wound up coming outside to sled with us, which was lots of fun. While Alice watched warily from the sidelines, Edith really got into it. Here she enjoyed going down with Claire and Claire's mom, but by the end she was going by herself. She was very proud of the family distance record that she and Tom set, too.