We Found Snow!

My son just loves snow; yes winter is cold, but there is fun to be had!  Except this winter it has just been cold.  And gray.  No snow.  We have spent our time at the ice skating rink and swimming pool, and have gone to the movies some, but a kid should have snow in the winter too.  So this Saturday we took a day trip bus outside of the city of Graz to a small mountain region nearby.  Yup, we found snow!  It was really fun because one of his friend's was able to come too, plus her Mom and her 2 little sisters.  So, there were 6 of us total.  Plus all our "stuff". I always seem to be lugging around extra "stuff" with me, but it all comes in so handy!  As soon as we got there I said to my son - your snow pants are in the bag under the bus.  He jumped out with the other kids before me and proceeded to get entirely covered in snow within 3 minutes.  Yes, his pants and socks were soaking wet!  In the first 3 minutes!  Good thing I had my "stuff" because I had dry clothes for him to change into and then quick, quick - get those snow pants on!  DH has an awful cold so couldn't come, but he packed ham sandwiches, oranges, ice tea, hot chocolate, plain bread and peanut butter and we had chocolate bars!  

Almenland.  It was supposed to take us about an hour to get there, but it was really snowing on the way up.  The bus crawled up all the hairpin turns with stunning drop-offs (no guard rails).  Then we had to stop and the driver put snow chains on the tires - that took time too.  The trip took us 2 1/2 hours, but once we got there, the weather was absolutely perfect!  Beautiful!  Ahhhh.

There are lots of things to do here - cross country skiing, downhill skiing, ice skating (except the lake wasn't really frozen), a big indoor pool, carriage rides.  We came to go sledding and brought lots of different slides with us, plus rented one for $2.50.  No charge to use the hill - but it is a bit of a walk UP there  Phew!  But the walk was worth the fun!

Really, we had the hill to ourselves except for later in the afternoon when some other people came, but by then the weather had closed in and we headed to a small restaurant for a hot meal before the bus was scheduled to leave at 5 pm!

Here we are!  After I took this photo I pulled a sled with one of the little ones because it was a bit of a distance to the restaurant.  It was the perfect time to take a little break.

When we got out of the restaurant, the weather had cleared and my son wanted to have a few final runs before boarding the bus.  He had a wonderful day!  I am so happy that I was able to give him at least 1 day of snow fun this winter!