Snow Days!

At West Ridge Middle School in Austin, Texas, students were happy to have two days off due to ice and snow. Here are some of their blog posts from that week.

My eyes opened wide. Excitement awoke my body. I knew what today was. I was waiting--the city was waiting--Austin was about to experience something not seen often at all.

Sliding down the hall,rushing down the stairs, my body made its way to the front door. My mind was imagining all sorts of things; I was prepared for disappointment, but hoping for the best. I took I deep breath. My hand tightly grasped the door handle. Opening the door slowly, I was scared what would be on the other side, and to my surprise I could see a couple of flakes on the ground, but that was enough.

School was canceled and I had a day I will never forget.

I wake up at 5:00am with my alarm blaring: ugh, just another day where I am already too tired to keep my head up right. My droopy eyes fall back on to my pillow.

“Ting-ting” I turn on my phone to see who was bugging me this early: Mom-- school was cancelled due to ice on the roads. My body just seeps back into my bed as my brain chants "yay!!!"

I wake up once again at 11; I look out my window to see my grass slightly covered with a thin sheet of snow. My roof to the guest house has a thick white layer of snow with icicles dripped down the sides. I want to go out and play in it, but I feel pretty much paralyzed.

Unfortunately, the snow melted before I could get up and go sledding or something like that. Later that night Susannah came over and we went hot tubbing in the freezing cold. We then made smores and watched movies.

I had the best snow day yet and hoping for another one tomorrow.

My friends may seem like normal teenagers when you see them walking around school, but if you could’ve seen what we did on the first snow day in 3 years, you would’ve thought differently.

When I heard that school was cancelled, of course, I like every other kid on the first snow day of the year, rushed to the window to see how much fluffy powder there really was. Today, there was none. It was a kind of disappointing. The snow was really like a big, hard, white blanket.

I took it as a great day to sleep in and maybe hang out with a friend later, but apparently my friends didn’t.

They saw it as a plan-a-football-game-at-9:30 kind of morning. They saw it as a let's-play-the-football-game-shirtless kind of day. They saw it as a great opportunity to crash the host's house and eat all of his frozen pizzas. They took it like let’s-go-buy-30-dollars-of-snacks-from-a-gas-station kind of day, and find-a-random-field-and-play-games-that-we-made-up-in-fourth-grade kind of day. They saw it as slam-dunk-contest-late-at-night kind of day.

Even though my idea was different than theirs, I accepted the request to come over because both of our ideas had something in common: we knew we had to have fun, and what fun we had.

On Friday snow--actual snow--fell down on to the ground in AUSTIN,TEXAS. “No school!” That’s what I’m hearing as I wake up from my sister's friend when she comes in and wakes me up.

Yes! half asleep I scrambled out of my bed and down the stairs. “Is school really canceled?” I ask my mom, very excited while looking outside at a white-icy-cold substance that I never see.

“Yep, no school today.” Great, I think while my mom was still in the middle of her sentence.

Later that day l went down the hill on my blue trash-can-shaped sled to see if my friend Margaret was free. We both went and sledded down the hill for a while. I got off my sled and just let it sled down the hill for a while, laughing about how it was just sledding down the hill. “No, it’s going to go down the gutter,” Margaret shouted and then… Gosh, it went in and I couldn’t get out anymore.

My mom suggested to go look in this graveyard of pipes to see if it went down. Of course with my luck it wasn’t there. We both went the back way through some woods and over a very slick icy bridge. There in the woods was a broken trampoline with two big gaping holes on the side. I went on and every time I jumped or walked a little the ice-snow would break into sheets and go to the middle. Crack, crack, crack--that's what I heard every time. At first it sounded and felt like it was going to rip. Every time I moved, my eyes bulged and opened wide, thinking that something would happen then I would relax.

A little while later we made Olaf and it stood forever and then at the very last second he fell and broke! Oh no, I think it took forever-- I was hoping that we could still fix it but by now I wasn’t sure. “Please. Please. I don’t want to remake him,” I thought to my self.

The clock says, 9:00am. I see the white thin ice on my roof. My eyes widen! YES! I see it snowed! I jump out of bed and bundle up in warm cozy clothes. I run out side and see a white wonder land filled with ice and snow!

I look at my trampoline, it’s piled with snow! I go bounce on it and the jagged ice begins to crack and crumble under my feet while I jump. After that I look around and see all the other things that are covered in the white thing, snow. Almost looking like glass.

I stay out till the snow becomes thinner. The ice begins to get softer and the sky begins to shine with a light glow of sun light. I love the fresh cold day with white fluffy snow every where! I wish It could always snow!!!!!!!❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

My alarm bursts with sound leaving me with a ringing eardrum. My eyes slowly opened and everything was blurry. This is the sign of me waking up. I stumble my way to the bathroom and my dad comes over. “There is no school today, it has been cancelled.” This was the sound that made my day. I crawled back in bed and enjoyed my extra sleep.

I later woke up and walked over to my window and I noticed a paper-thin patch of snow on my front yard. The sun glistened on it as it was melting. Before time ran out, I had my chance to make whatever I could with the snow. It was good to have a break from school.

As soon as I wake up, I go to my window.

I had heard the sleet hitting my windows all night. I couldn’t wait to catch a glimpse of the first snow in ages.

My window reveals a roof covered in white, all sparkly and clear. I open my window and run my fingers across the frozen roof.

I had hoped for snow. I got ice.

My breath hangs in the air like an unanswered question, and I finally close the window after the icicles on my neighbors roof start to drip.

I am cold now. My pajamas are not made for cold weather. I grab my enormous blanket from my bed and walked out to my sister’s room.

She was still asleep, but not for long. I sat on her bed and stared at her.

She woke up.

I told her about the ice and showed her the window that displayed our trampoline, covered in white, and sitting in a field of ice that is our backyard.

We wanted to go outside to try to find the icicles that we loved so much. I wrapped my blanket around my sweater and put on my shoes. I opened the door and go to our rock garden thing that has been covered in ice.

The frozen grass crunched beneath my feet. It was a satisfying sound.

The rocks were covered in a thin layer of ice, and were slippery. The frozen rain were in puddles I could slide on.

I lost the feeling in my toes when I decided to go back to the house.

On my snow days I had so much fun playing inside. Wh.. Wait, what? You didn’t play outside?!

I know, I know, I didn’t go outside, so what! I probably had as much fun as you guys did. I had a great day staying warm inside, having no school, and playing most of the day. I got to play plenty of video/board games, (thank god) watched my favorite TV shows, and just about procrastinated all day.

I do wish that I went outside for a little bit, but my grandparents thought it was too icy. I thought that if I could find a piece of cardboard I could sled down the hill

(because nobody in Texas has a sled.) I still didn’t go outside for both of the two days.

I want to know what you guys did during the snow day, if it was horrible, if it was amazing, of if you don’t remember because you slept through the day.

SNOW!!!!!!

Where do I start? It’s the most beautiful, wonderful, perfect thing in the world! And we are “lucky” enough to live in a place were we get virtually none! But this week we had two snow days! Not can't-open-your-door snow, but why-not-cancel-school snow. Either way I loved it.

I woke up on Friday and already knew there was a late start because of bad weather. I looked outside and saw white! I was freaking out! Then I heard that school was cancelled completely which meant I had the whole day to do whatever I wanted. So I went to my friend Peyton’s house to sled down his icy driveway. By the time we got there most of the ice on his driveway had melted but there was a ton of ice on his slide. So we rigged the sled on the slide and slid down it for an hour!

But the best part was when I got out of my dad's car and fell down on the road because it was so icy!

On Friday morning, January 24th, everything was still. The grass frozen. The sky dark. The birds don’t sing. This morning was the day of the Great Snow Storm of Austin, Texas. It snowed a whole half inch, and the roads were covered in a whole square centimeter of ice! The residents of Austin were startled by the cold, white substance that was on the ground. “What is it?” they wondered as they sat in their houses. The strange substance melts by noon, and life is returned to its normal state – for now, at least.

On Tuesday morning, January 28th, everything was still. The strange substance had returned. “Quick! To the panic room!” parents shouted as they herded their children to safety from the substance. Bewildered parents talk as they wait for the substance to leave. “What if it’s toxic? If I step on it I bet you I will die!” a father said. “Oh, I don’t think it’s that bad. It doesn’t look dangerous,” the mother replied. “I’m going to go outside and pick some up,” the mother declared. “What!? Are you crazy? It will kill you in an instant, freeze you solid and poison you!” the father retorted.

The mother did not listen, and left the panic room to go outside. She hesitantly turned the doorknob, and walked off the porch. The substance crunched as she stepped on it, and she was unharmed. She picked some up, and it melted in her hands. “It’s melted into water!” she said in surprise. The father came out with a look of disbelief, and picked some up himself. The children followed, and the news was alerted.

Life returned to normal in Austin after discovering that the substance was safe, and children now play in the substance that they decided to call “snow”.

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