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I took this picture while playing around with Erin and Joel’s new camera over new years and called it “Winter In My Coffee Cup”. It’s a pretty accurate portrayal of mornings here…blue-grey sky with barren trees but cozy with a hot cup of steaming coffee inside.

Saturday did bring us snow, or rather, we took ourselves to it. By noon we’d had enough watching the flurries floating around Maryville…torture to snow lovers like us who longed for drifts of fluffy stuff. It was steadily falling but much too warm on the ground to stick, hence the moniker “sky dandruff”. We loaded up in the car, sleds included, in search of higher elevations and an afternoon of FUN.

We headed for Townsend and Cades Cove, the standby destination of newbies still learning the place and wanting to avoid the craziness that is Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. There was hardly another car on the road and the snow continued to increase as we drove along.

Getting up the winding path to the Great Smoky National Park includes what we not so lovingly refer to as “Throw Up Mountain”. I’ll let your imagination do the rest. But, it turns out, they close that road in snow. So our only option was to turn right, into Cades Cove, which turned out to be more than enough.

We twisted and turned and as we rounded each corner more snowy beauty greeted us. It was breathtaking really. Little evergreens covered in powder. Bare branches quietly frosted. It really did look as if a giant powdered sugar duster had just been sprinkled over us.

By the time we got to the loop road there were several inches on the ground and it was still falling. We made it to the Abram’s falls trail and headed out for a hike, sledding, snowball fights, and snow angels. We built a large snowman at the Grist mill and the baby crawled all over the place in pure delight.

It was our kids’ first time seeing snow and we had one of the most fun afternoons of our entire family life! The best hill was just past the Grist mill. We all took turns sledding, the baby on our lap too! We laughed and rolled and shrieked and ran and giggled and gasped at the amazing beauty all around us. Every view was like a christmas card or pretty puzzle scene.

The snow was crunchy and powdery and the perfect kind for making balls. There wasn’t any ice around and even though our clothing and mittens and such was a wet, inadaquate mess, we didn’t feel the cold for our absolute joy. The baby was a roly poly ball of cuteness in his little snowsuit; I got lots of pictures!

It renewed our hopes of finding affordable ski equiptment over the summer for next year. We are definately the kind of family who will use it often. We’re hoping to go again next weekend if there is snow, maybe even to ober gatlinburg if necessary. It was a fantastic way to spend a Saturday.

We came home and made hot pizza and hot chocolate. The kids crashed early and David and I watched a movie and snuggled. On monday morning, we’re still high…..

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