Great Snow Adventure 2012

By all accounts our great snow adventure was a success.  The kids LOVED the snow, and, in general, seemed to eat up our adventurous weekend. As soon as we could see snow-covered mountain tops from the freeway Ashagre was abuzz with excitement; if he didn't have his seatbelt on he might have just vibrated right out of his seat. Elsa was prepping us all for proper snow eating with this little ditty as we traveled up the freeway:

It was a great first introduction to snow for our SoCal Ethiopians.  The temperatures never dipped even close to freezing, allowing us to play out in the snow until we were all completely exhausted each day. Honestly, by the second day it had been so warm that there really wasn't even much snow to speak of, but we made sure to take full advantage of what was available. We had many, many snowball fights, made snowmen and snow angels, and did some extreme sledding. The kids LOVED sledding and had absolutely no fear.  The north Idaho girl in me couldn't get enough of my adorable kids all bundled up in their snow clothes.

Uncle Whoosa-Dog in snow.

The kids handled the weekend's lack of routine and exposure a new group of people really well. Slowly but surely Brent and I are learning how to help them succeed. We did a lot of front-loading so they would know what to expect for the weekend and were crystal clear on what we expected of them. We used concrete examples of other excitement-packed weekends that went well so they had a frame of reference. We also sent an email to our friends to let them know how to help us help the kids feel safe and stay regulated. Originally I felt a little awkward writing the email, but almost every one of our friends thanked us for the information and was happy to know how to best interact with the kids so everyone could enjoy the weekend. Two of our friends that we last saw in September made a point to pull Brent and me aside to let us know how much progress they had seen in the kids trust of us and their resulting behavior (the kids were absolutely off the wall the last weekend we spent with them).

We'll see how the next week plays out as we settle back into our routine. I'm going to continue to keep my expectations low so as not to get overly frustrated if its rough. For now I'll just relish in the success of another family adventure with a vision toward a future with many more to come.