In February of 2019 we had 32 degrees and 7.5 inches of snow in north Scottsdale AZ. My husband actually measured how much snow was on top of a low dividing wall.  I felt like I was back in Chicago looking at a white winter wonderland as the large flakes fell softly to the ground.  In the 14 years I’ve been in this house, it’s been our fourth snow, but this one was the most and lasted more than overnight.  If you drove just 8 blocks south, there wasn’t even a drop of snow on the ground!  You could only see it on the top of the mountains. When we drive north towards our house, we always watch the temperature gauge on the car as it drops about 10 degrees from the main city, but rarely down to freezing.

As my daughter said, she didn’t have to take her kids several hours north to play in the snow – just 40 minutes to Grammie’s house!  After a few sled rides over the back patio, we all went into the side yard (the only place with grass) to play in the snow and build a snowman.

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My Fairy Garden buried under 7.5 inches of snow

The snowman was a group accomplishment. Max and Miles, 7 and 3, brought the snow over to our snowman location.  Padding the snowman into shape was mostly from the adults because the boys kept trying to put bulky pieces on top and the snowman would break apart.  That was mostly because the rain on Sat. with the cold temps had made the snow more like ice than fluff.  I really knew it was hard-pack when Max threw a snowball at me — it hurt.  (As I suspected, the next day I had a black-and-blue mark on my hip.)

Next:  Make the snowman look like more than a mountain of snow!

Since the snowman needed to look like one, we added features to our “mountain”:

• The arms came from some red poles that were used for a game of horseshoes.
• The face and buttons came from small rocks the boys found on the ground.
• The gloves were donated by my daughter.
• The hat was donated from Max since he had a hood.
• I didn’t have any carrots, so I used an orange bell pepper for his nose.

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I think the bell pepper was better than a carrot – more like a nose!

All in all, we had a grand time.  But it wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t all have the same goal – to build a snowman together. The boys couldn’t have done it themselves, as evidenced by their bringing huge pieces over and toppling half the body several times.