First Snow of the Year

We had an interesting start to our snow season this year.  It started to snow really hard mid morning while the older kids were in school.  The school waited too long to release the kids early from school and by the time they did the traffic on the base was horrible.  As hard as I tried to get the most up to date information from the bus office about where the kids bus was and what time I could expect it to arrive at our bus stop, I found myself getting frustrated at the lack of information that was being given to me.  After an hour or so of phone tag with the bus office I learned that the bus was still on base waiting in a long line of traffic just waiting to get off of the base and they weren't sure exactly where the bus was in relation to the gate.  Mike had already left the base by the time I found this out and so I called him and he turned around to take the train back to base.   Since the traffic was as equally bad off base Mike thought it might be a good idea to stop at some of the stations along the way to the base to see if the buses were stopped in traffic on Rt. 16.  We had no idea when the buses would leave the base so it was worth a shot just in case he got to base and the buses weren't there.  After searching for the buses on Rt. 16 and stepping in a frozen puddle of water Mike decided to head back home before his toes fell off from frost bite.  After warming up he headed out once again but this time headed all the way to the base.  The buses were STILL waiting in traffic on the base.   I was so livid that the bus office hadn't contacted all the parents to let us know that they were still waiting on the bus on the base.  For over 2 hours the kids sat on that bus.  They did let them off the bus to use a local bathroom but their  feet got wet in the process and so they sat quite cold on the bus.  To make matters worse, the heat on the bus wasn't running because the bus wasn't moving and they wouldn't let them eat or drink on the bus even though it wasn't moving.  Mike walked right up to the bus and got the kids and they all walked to the train station to head home.  No one except for Mike was wearing winter shoes and by the time they all made it to our station, they were frozen, tired, and completely upset.  Peter and Emma had a hard transition getting warm again and there were lots of tears shed in the shower.  It made me so sad to hear them cry but I was super grateful that everyone was safe and together again.  It was dark by this time so there was no time to play in the snow BUT we totally took advantage of the next day of no school to play ALL DAY in the snow at our park.  It was a sweet reward for all the trauma experienced the day before.  Our second day snow wasn't the softest snow but we still managed to go sledding and build a snowman.