A French busy signal is more like an indicator that you may have misdialed or that your phone line isn’t working properly than an actual busy signal. It doesn’t even sound much different than the sound you hear when the other end is ringing. But I got used to the new sound as I repeatedly tried getting through to the ski school at Chamrousse to make sure Kaitlyn has a lesson Saturday morning. Everyone else who woke up to all that snow on the ground had the same thought: hurray!
Kaitlyn and I couldn’t resist all that fresh, white snow in our yard. Plus, I had to try out my new ski jacket and pants. So we bundled all up, filled my pocket with buttons for our snowman’s eyes and mouth and went outside.
I didn’t bother with a ruler. Too fussy and official. I can tell you that the snow easily came up to Kaitlyn’s knees as she tromped through it. Last night, Bill estimated four inches looking at the snow piled up on the swings. I think it may even be a little more.
We plopped down and made snow angels. We tried to make a snowman, but the snow is so soft and dry it won’t stick together enough. Kaitlyn loved just making footmarks (what she calls footprints) around the yard. She brushed the snow off the swings and teeter totter so we could take turns going up and down and up and down. I had to convince her that the pool is not an ice rink and managed to keep her at a decent distance from it. We rolled around in the snow. We laughed and laughed, it was such silly fun. Kaitlyn climbed our little hill and tried to slide down on her rear end. That didn’t work too well. I fetched her little sled it looks like a flat plastic shovel with a stubby little handle. Perfect for a little bottom. It sent her flying down the hill. I even gave it a try. Honestly, we both squealed with delight the whole way down. And climbing the hill was hard… had to have burned off at least a few extra calories that way.
Kaitlyn refused to give up on the idea of a snowman. She started scraping the snow and piling it up the best she could. It took a fair amount of work but we finally ended up with a lump in the snow about a foot tall or so. She stuffed a carrot in the middle for a nose. That took a couple tries, the first time the carrot made the blob disintegrate. Then came the buttons. Two pink ones for eyes and an assortment to make a mouth. She was thrilled with her creation. But to get the buttons out of my pocket and onto his face, we both had to take off our mittens. Then we were both freezing.
Before going in, I couldn’t resist a couple more rides down the little hill on Kaitlyn’s little butt sled. She got her folding beach chair out of her playhouse and set it up at the bottom to watch… like the people at the base of the run at Chamrousse.
We had a great time. Every Wednesday should be this much fun.