"it WILL mount!"

Winter came to Denver Monday....brutally, quickly and painfully.  Ben had two days off for teacher training and in honor of Veteran's day.  We began our day with a strider ride to the elementary school playground.  As we left the house I wondered why we'd worn jackets at all and within five minutes at the playground, I was glad we had.  The temperatures dropped 50 degrees in 7 hours and we took two trips out to play in the "snow."  Ben was out of his mind with excitement for the snow and for wearing his boots and for the fire he thought we would have.  At some point between our two trips outside I said, "buddy, we can go outside but the snow is not going to amount to much."  That comment stopped him in his tracks and he looked at me squarely and said, "It WILL mount Mommy, it WILL MOUNT."

I hid my laughter and calmly agreed with an, "Ok. whatever you say. "

10 am

2pm

brrrrrrr!

Ben did get his first real post-snow "warm" chocolate and couldn't get enough.

We spent our Tuesday with friend Wyatt and his mom, Jess at the WOW Children's museum and having burritos for lunch.  Tuesday was not supposed to include much snow, but it hardly stopped all day.  

Ben would've stayed at the piano all day.

He can finally do the bubble machine on his own. This one is a little more DIY and harder to pull than the one at the big (read: more well-funded) museum near our house.

Oh these two are such blessings to their Jessica mamas.

We spent Tuesday evening celebrating Great Grandma Lola's 97th birthday.  She is living in a great new facility very close to Pat and Jim that has meant less worry and work for all involved and she seems very happy there too.

This one melts me.

 The drive home was a hairy one and for all I'd gone through single-momming it all week, I really missed having Ryan there to drive us home. ;)  So much of the country is under this cold-snap that even Ryan isn't escaping it in a much more southern locale.  Fortunately for Ben, the forecast calls for more boots, more snowballs and more "warm" chocolate.