First Snow

It's not even Halloween yet (tomorrow; pics undoubtedly to come this week) but we just had our first snowstorm. Perhaps a harbinger of the season to come which, if the Farmer's Almanac is correct, will be a doozy.

Natalia and I withstood the beginning part of the storm from lovely Devens, MA, our home away from home during ultimate season. It was our final tourney of the season. We made it through 3.5 games (winning .5, losing 3) before both teams decided that it was too cold, snowy, and disgusting to play a meaningless consolation game in a relatively meaningless tournament. Our toes had been frozen from point 3 of game 1, and by point 12 of game 4, nobody was moving too quickly or showing any great athletic skill. So off to the bar we went to warm up a bit and enjoy the flakes from indoors.

Today was a much nicer day. My body swore at me for playing yesterday, but then thanked me when I told it that there would be no more ultimate until April.

After a pumpkin pancake breakfast, Andres and I headed outside to shovel what little snow we got. He was a pretty big help (for his age, anyway), and after about 20 minutes he discovered the joy of heaving shovels of snow onto me instead of onto the grass. I reciprocated, so we had our first snowball fight of the season. He proved to be pretty relentless, which could pose problems for me in the coming years. (For now, I can take him down pretty easily.)

In addition to shoveling, it was a good day to cook. I focused on easily-prepped comfort foods that could serve us well for the week: guacamole (Celia loves it, though she pronounces it "makamole"), rice and beans (which neither child will eat), and potato soup (which Natalia really likes, and which actually turned out pretty well tonight). Good foods for a winter day.

But it's not really winter yet--it's still October. And tomorrow is Halloween, so we made some small jack-o-lanterns today. Andres seemed quite preoccupied with making sure his jack-o-lantern had teeth; Celia didn't care so much about that, but enjoyed putting the top of the pumpkin back onto the body. "I did it!" she kept saying. Tomorrow, he is going trick-or-treating as a stegosaurus and she is dressing as a turtle.

I'm really looking forward to taking them out trick-or-treating, too. Andres is amped about Halloween--he has been asking about trick-or-treating for most of the month, and since he still doesn't have a great sense of time, saying things like "I know you want to have Halloween tonight, but you have to wait another 18 days for everyone else to celebrate it" hasn't helped much. His costume is also incredible--all due to Natalia--and he will make a great dinosaur.

I think Celia will have a blast too. She's such a social kid, and all she wants to do now is to hang out with her older brother, who she idolizes. They will be a good team...two reptiles walking around in snowy Waltham, looking for candy.