Once there was a snow cave tall, tall, tall

At the end of January, we had some absolutely gorgeous snowfalls. The first of which created beautiful, sparkly snow. It was amazing to behold--but I couldn't get any good photos to represent it well enough. Except, I kept this one, becaues I couldn't believe I actually captured a real, 6-pointed snowflake--let alone 3! Two are in the bottom left, and one is in the bottom right of this picture:

The second snowfall had ginormous, slow-falling flakes that were really an enjoyment to watch. The snowfall began in the evening, and it continued to snow all through the night. Since the snow was falling so slowly, I tried to really capture its essence again with my camera, but this was the best image I got--you can see the big snowflakes falling, and how big they looked when they individually landed on the ground clustered all together: 

The next morning when I woke up, our yard looked like a winter wonderland. It was so beautiful outside!

It was awesome snow; very powdery and also good for packing. The boys got all suited up that afternoon, and we spent hours outside playing in the perfect snow.

With all that new snow, our snowhill (complete with a big jump) was much more cushioned, and the boys had a blast sledding and tubing pain-free without getting bumps and bruises!

I love Josh's face in this one! It cracks me up!!!

But that face didn't last long!

Shorty kept trying to nip at everyone as they were coming down the hill, so we had to put him on a leash, but he still managed to stay involved because he didn't want to be left out!

Kanyon doesn't like sledding, so he spent a lot of time wrestling with Shorty in the snow...

The boys finally convinced Kanyon to go tubing by promising to tie a rope onto a tube and then tying the opposite end of the rope to the fence, so that he wouldn't go all the way down the hill. Surprisingly, he obliged. The older 3 boys worked together to pull him up the hill (like a king in a chariot):

Ammon tied the rope to the fence behind the sled hill, and down Kanyon came...

 ...and when the tube stopped, he flew through the air and kept going!

And can you believe, that even though he's been afraid of sledding all winter, and hasn't gotten on one before now, and even though he got thrown off after the first time, that he actually GOT BACK ON?!!! I couldn't believe it! But he did! And the next time, the tube stopped, and he stayed on. And then the next time, the rope broke, and he made it all the way to the bottom!!! The whole sequence of events was a big shocker for all of us! (I tried uploading the video, but Blogger won't do it).

Since the snow was so perfect, Josh had the idea to build a snow cave. The boys worked together to shovel and pile up snow near the base of the snowhill.

 

After a while, they got tired of working on it and went back to sledding, but Josh continued building it. He got it to be about 5' tall, and then he worked on digging out an entrance to it.

Then he worked his way in, shoveling snow out as he went.

And finally, he made a room inside the snow cave, and I shoveled out the excess snow that he was shaving from the walls.

After about 2 hours of working on it, we finally felt like it was safe and sturdy enough to let the boys inside it. When they were in it, Josh was testing the thickness of the walls with sticks, and having the boys report to him when they could see the stick poke through. Josh thought he could make the ceiling a little bit higher, so after the boys got out, he got back in and cut a little bit more from the top. And by doing so, he created a hole. When he tried to fix the hole, it got bigger and bigger. So...that was the end of that! All that work for about 2 minutes that the boys got to be inside of it!! It was an adventure right in our own back yard, and a new way to spend the day outside in the snow, so it wasn't a complete waste! ;)