Winter Camping

The snow cave





The intrepid campers



For the past three winters, Jack has built a hockey rink in our backyard for the kids. Whenever they shovel snow off the rink, they pile it up into a big mound. Jack hallowed the mound out two years ago and made a snow cave. This year, he elevated the snow cave to a whole new level. Jack and the boys spent most of the afternoon outside on Saturday skating on the rink and working on the snow cave. And then Jack announced to the boys that they were going to sleep in it Saturday night. I thought he was kidding. I don't know why I thought that. I've been married to this man for almost 10 years... of course he wasn't kidding. He lined the floor with old carpet scraps, carried out sleeping bags, dressed the boys in all the right clothing and did all the other things that a dad should do when preparing his sons to sleep outside when it's 13 degrees. And, I'm happy to report that the three of them stayed in the snow cave all night. They did sleep. They did stay relatively warm (Jack tells me it's warm in there). And Jack is the coolest dad in the world.

There is one disclaimer to add: he did take his cell phone out to the cave with him that night. Mock if you will, but I think it was very considerate. There was no way that I, his 38-week pregnant wife, was going to tromp outside in the middle of a cold winter night between contractions to fetch my husband if I had gone into labor!