It never snows here in our little valley – we’re too close to sea level. But this week has been extra cold, and a few days ago my four-year-old, Ember, came running to me excitedly to say she saw snowflakes. Sure enough, as I walked out of my bathroom where I had been brushing my teeth to open the front door, I saw a flurry of snowflakes falling from the sky. Naturally, my kids were eager to explore, so we bundled up and went outside to try to catch snowflakes on our tongues. As we played, the snow fell faster and heavier. There’s something so soothing about a snowstorm – no matter how thick the storm, the snow falls in utter peace and silence. 

The girls ran around for an hour or so, giddily screaming and laughing as their curls gathered specks of white. Eventually they got cold, their little hands red and frozen, and we went back inside to warm up and get some lunch. Later, we noticed that the snow had stopped falling. A tiny bit had seemed to stick, but it was just little spots here and there, and definitely nothing to write home about (or a blog post!). We went about the rest of our day, not thinking any further about the excitement of the morning. 

That night, I woke up at some point – I’m not sure what time, as the clocks were not working. The power had gone out. We’ve gotten used to power outages around here, ever since our wildfire in 2017. Our power company often performs what they call power safety shutoffs, which can last anywhere from a half day to several days. However, these are typically implemented during the warmer months, when things are dry and high winds threaten damage that could start fires – not in January when things are cold and wet. The benefit to these regularly expected power outages was that we had invested in a generator to help when these outages occurred. 

When the sun came up that morning, I opened the blinds on my bedroom window to see a thick blanket of snow covering our property. My husband, Lane, had left for work around 5am, and said that many trees and power lines were damaged and in the road. The power was still out, and now I knew that it likely wouldn’t be restored anytime soon. My thoughtful husband had manually turned on our gas fireplace before leaving so that we had a heat source. Without power or internet, I couldn’t really work, and fortunately I wasn’t on any deadlines at the moment. So, I took full advantage and had a snow day with my kids. 

We bundled up again, this time with gloves and hats, and went outside to run around in the fluffy snow. Ember and Karissa loped outside as soon as I opened the door, mesmerized and ecstatic by the blanket of white before them. Karissa, nearing her second birthday, immediately went to our picnic table and began scooping up gloved handfuls of snow and eating it. Ember was appreciating the prints left behind by her rainboots as she explored the unanticipated wonderland.

When we grew too cold, despite all of our winter clothes, we came back inside. Still without power, I pulled out our giant craft box from the garage so we could get creative. Over the years, I have stuffed it full of fun little things such as paper, glitter, markers and crayons, pink feathers, sequins, glitter glue, stamps and inkpads, pieces of tissue paper, stickers, empty toilet paper rolls, and books on various crafts to do at home. I spread out a paint mat and let the girls go to town with whatever they wanted to create.

Ember practiced cutting things out with her safety scissors, while Karissa placed stickers on top of stickers on a piece of paper. Partaking in the imaginative fun, I colored a picture ironically inspired by springtime – full of lavender tulips, a sunglasses-wearing sun, and a little buzzing bee. A weather-enforced mandatory day off turned into an enjoyable family day full of creativity and invention. Perhaps the most important thing we created that day were memories.