Nearly every year it threatens to snow in Atlanta. Every few years it actually does. The forecasts had been saying for a week that there was a small chance of some snow on Friday, but schools and most offices were still open.

Well freezing rain turned to sleet and shortly thereafter, sleet turned to snow. Announcements were made, Publix was raided for eggs, milk, and bread, kids were picked up, and it was time for playing in the snow.

View down the neighborhood drive. It started to accumulate pretty quickly

Mira had one goal when she first heard about the possibility of snow. She was going to catch a snowflake on her tongue.

Mira catching snowflakes on her tongue

Mission accomplished! Now time for a snowball fight. It was just below 32 degrees so the snow was wet and made for great snowballs.

Mira primed with a snowball aimed at me

Mira with our house in the background

Do you want to build a snowman? Yes of course!

Perfect snowball snow is also perfect snowman snow

We built a three layer snowman with just the snow from our postage stamp sized yard. Mira helped me find some sticks, pine cones, and acorns for his eyes, nose, and arms.

It turned into sleet for a bit after this and we went back inside. Not pictured in any of these is Sonali, who managed to twist her ankle earlier in the week. Also not pictured is our neighbor’s great dane which kept coaxing Mira to throw snowballs at her. Our own dog moved his doggie bed in front of the heat vent and stayed put the entire afternoon.

One of the best parts of snow days is that all the neighborhood kids are home without the preset plans that are so common today. So everybody is out playing in the neighborhood at the same time. We’ve got one big hill and of course that’s where everybody went to try and sled.

Mira sledding with one of the neighbors

The ground wasn’t that cold and it wasn’t that slick. The snow sleds worked pretty well but the improvised options, such as the wake board and laundry basket, were not that effective.

Typical of Mira she refused to quit until it got dark. At which point she was freezing, something that turned into a full blown fever. Taking it to the other extreme the following day, Mira decided she was going to stay inside, in her PJs and under a blanket.

The morning after, it finally stopped snowing after 21 hours

We ended up with 4.5 inches

While Mira watched TV (because what else can she do when “sick”), Sonali and I watched the light reflecting of the melting snow falling off the trees.

The light reflecting off the trees made for some nice effects