Thunder Snow and a Few Games to Survive

Friday night we were headed to dinner and I announced that my favorite weatherman was calling for snow on Saturday. 

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Have I ever told you about my favorite weatherman? Brad Panovich is a weatherman in Charlotte and is a social media maven.  I always can trust that if something weather-related is happening Charlotte, Brad is tweeting about it. 

He’s great at engagement and will even answer silly questions like should I go to the mall at 1 or 3 this afternoon to beat the rain?  Once, Lexi told me to “ask the weather guy in your phone” about a storm brewing.  

I hope other cities have an equally awesome weatherman because it ROCKS.

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Everyone scoffed at the snow news as we had some snow flurries recently, but it was quite underwhelming.

Saturday morning came along and sure enough, there were flurries.  It didn’t do much sticking though and the girls scoffed once again. 

We moved on with planned play dates for the afternoon and I noted to the mother that I had heard (through Brad on Twitter) we were supposed to get another bout of snow that afternoon but none of it was supposed to stick.

Well, SURE ENOUGH, about 20 minutes before the girls were scheduled to finish up their play dates (we exchanged girls with a set of sisters), ALL THE SNOW fell out of the sky.

This picture is not more than 10 minutes after the snow started.  Either I missed one of Brad’s tweets or he might have underestimated this thunder snow but we definitely had some accumulation.

 

Lexi got dropped off from her play date just a few minutes later and all the girls spent some time playing around.

 

Normally, people are running to the store for bread and milk 24 hours before snow but nothing this time.  We had no clue it was going to be like this.

By Saturday evening, we had 2-3” and everyone was rushing to get home.  Many churches canceled Sunday morning.

I heard (again, from Brad) that this was the most snow we’ve had in 2 years.

Sunday morning we got up and properly dressed in snow clothes.  You have to hurry because snow never lasts long.  You can see much of it was melting already by the time we got out.

Scott was at work and I could not find our one purple sled to save my life so no sledding for us but we did manage some snow angels

 

and snowball fights.

 

Did I mention that this was Tucker’s first snow and he was insane in the membrane about it?

 

He was running circles so fast and when it was snowing on Saturday he was jumping 3 feet in the air trying to catch the snowflakes.

 

As you imagine, these pictures only account for just minutes of our weekend.  The girls and I spent most of it inside enjoying our weekend.

This post is so long already but really, I wanted to share a few games we played ad nauseum to pass the time indoors. 

They’re all easy, cheap and actually fun to play.

Four Corners

I played this game YEARS ago in school but the girls had to remind me what to do. 

One person counts in the middle of the room with their eyes closed.  The others quietly pick a corner in the room and stand.  The person in the middle, with their eyes still closed, picks a corner number.  Whoever is in that corner is out.  You keep doing that until one person has not been picked.  The remaining person wins and counts next.

I love this game because it requires me only to walk quietly, stand quietly and count to ten.  The girls think it’s hilarious though to try to walk quietly and stand quietly and get really excited when they’re not picked.

One Word Story

We started this game at dinner-time and while we don’t play it at every dinner, the girls LOVE this game.  The game is simply played by one person starting a story with one word.  The next person adds just one word to the story and it continues in a circle until you’re done with the story, whether from a good ending or boredom. 

The first time we played this game, Emma was in stitches.  We were writing stories like “Once there was a dog who jumped over a house and died.”  So silly but I think the girls enjoy being silly and seeing US be silly too.

Rat a Tat Cat

Rat a Tat Cat is a card game of numbers that the girls got as a present.  I can’t explain it all but basically each player gets four cards, 2 of which you can look at.  You go in rounds trying to get the lowest sum of cards.  When you think you have them, you say “Rat a Tat Cat” and everyone adds up their cards, seeing if their unknown cards played well for them or not.

Usually the games go fast and there’s not a lot to fuss over so it’s a good family game.

 

I hope those help you finish out this winter being stuck inside.  Hurry up, summer!

 

How was the weather like this weekend for you?  What are your favorite family games/