It was only a couple of days until Christmas. For the first time in our lives, we were in a state where we actually had better than a 0.001% chance of snow in the winter. Even though we were living all the way North in Washington state, the winter weather wasn’t exactly magical. That is, unless 35º and raining with no hope of seeing the sun for weeks sounds magical to you! Even still, we held our breath in anticipation that this might actually be the first time in our lives we’d get to experience an event that truly was so magical people write songs about it.
A White Christmas!
Our entire family was watching the weather forecast as if it were the lottery. We’d already gone through a handful of times where the weather man promised snow, and then we’d wake up to disappointment and rain! But this morning was different.
The group texts started coming in at 6AM. All six adults in our family were on it, and all of us were acting like children. My dad, Dave, started in right away with the weather updates. “Here is comes. Get ready for it!” There was Christmas music playing and I felt the warmth of the heater coming up from the vents in the floor. I looked out of our large bay windows in the living room to see one of my childhood dreams coming to life before my eyes!
At this point our family’s text thread looked a little like this:
“IT’S SNOWINNNNNNG!!!!”
“Clappy hands, clappy hands, snowflake, snowflake!”
“AHHH!! This is SO beautiful!!
“Ah.Ma.Zing!!!”
“Told ya” (That’d be from my dad)
Snowflakes didn’t look exactly like I had always thought they would, but as I watched them fall onto our lawn everything felt so peaceful and all I hoped for was more. More snow to fall. More white to cover everything around us. More of my childhood dream to become a reality! I didn’t want it to end!
It wasn’t long before it looked like our back yard had risen 2 feet high! I couldn’t see a single bark chip or blade of grass! It was the most surreal feeling in the world for an Arizona native! Everything felt so calm, peaceful, and right.
Within no time at all, puffy vests, snowpants, and sleds started spilling out of all the neighbors houses! It was time to hit the hills and have some fun! We felt like kids ourselves as we bundled up Brody and Paislee in snow pants and jackets and headed for the big neighborhood hill! I’m so thankful to have been able to experience that for the first time, but also to experience it with our two precious kids! It was a Christmas to remember!
They told ya that about once every ten years, Vancouver would get hit with a huge snow storm. That was easy to believe but I never believed we’d be there to experience it!
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