Berkeley Snow Day 2016

This past Sunday we spent a day in the snow - without even leaving Berkeley!

It may not actually snow here in the Bay Area, but each December Berkeley's kids (big and small) can spend a few hours playing in the snow right here in our very own backyard thanks to our annual snow day event, Snow? In Berkeley?.

This snow day is one of the annual events that my kids look forward to the most. It's not every day that they get to build a snowman, or throw snow balls at each other. Not that they throw their snowballs at each other mind you - they throw them all at me! Well, with a few thrown at each other for good measure.

As Sunday was a sunny day (and far too warm for real snow) we made sure to head to the event early to play in the snow before it became a melted mess. It was already pretty wet by the time we arrived, but the girls still got about an hour or so of snow fun with friends before they decided they were hungry and ready to move onto food.

Lola and Mathilde spent much of their time digging in the snow with shovels and Mathilde's toy digger. Mathilde scooped up snow to make a little snowman (with my help), while Lola mostly scooped up snow to throw at other people - or to eat! Seriously, kids are gross!

Making a snowman was top of Ava's list of snow fun, but with so many kids running around on the small patch of snow she knew that her snowman would get knocked over pretty quickly. So instead, she made her snowman on the edge of the sidewalk next to the snow. Not the most scenic spot, but her plan worked as no one stepped on it! 

Of course, there were also plenty of snowballs from Ava too - most of which were directed at me! Oh, and if you're wondering what happened to Ava's glasses, she took them off after a while as Lola kept knocking them off with snowballs!

Like last year, Lola was happy to dish out the snowballs, but not so happy to have them thrown at her. She got pretty grumpy at one point when someone (most likely Ava) kept throwing snow at her. Just look at that grumpy face! She got over it pretty quickly though and went back to throwing snow at everyone else. And don't ask me what Mathilde is doing below!

Mathilde didn't mind having snow dumped on her though. In fact, she thought it was pretty fun and after the initial shock of that first scoop of snow on her head, she asked me to tip snow on her head over and over!

The girls had a blast playing in the snow - even those who didn't like having it thrown at them! I am hoping that we get the chance to take the girls on a real snow adventure this Winter. The ski slopes of Lake Tahoe are only three hours away and we've only visited once in our five years here, so it's about time we visited again.

Does it snow where you live? We've never lived anywhere with snow before - apart from a short stint in Zurich before kids, but it didn't snow in the 10 months that I lived there! I love the idea of living somewhere snowy, but I'm sure the novelty would probably wear off pretty quickly. For now, at least, we have our one snow day a year here in Berkeley.