Saturday, January 24, 2015

Waking Up In Calvin and Hobbes Land

Last night at soccer practice it was really cold. As our team did warm up laps around the field, it looked like a steam engine was along for the ride, since you could so vividly see our breaths. And what happens when it's cold? Snow! This morning I woke up in a winter wonderland and the day ended up feeling like something out of a Bill Watterson cartoon. 


Snow adventures are always better with a buddy!
Matti, host brother (who's Calvin in our Hobbes-Calvin duo), and I got out the sleds and went out into the snowy wilderness this afternoon. We headed over to this path called Schaafweg, which borders a great big field with a good sledding hill. We shared the hill with six or so other people, the majority of which were under five years old. Matti and I, however, went much faster than the other kiddos. We built a sort of track that got very slick and provided for quite the ride.


What an angel!
And naturally, as is required by siblings, we ended up having a drawn-out, unofficial, somewhat sporadic snowball fight. I guess you could say Matti won, but come on, I was totally taking it easy on my little brother! 

Check out our snowy, little walnut-eyed friend we found along the way.

It was pretty spectacular standing at the top of the little hill/in the middle of the field and taking in the view all around. It was so peaceful in the silent snow, but with a touch of playfulness seeing the kids running around in their bright snow hats with the pompoms sewn on top flopping around. I was looking out towards Aachen then turned round in the other direction to take in the Eifel and-- bam!-- snowball, or rather snow boulder, to the thigh. Gotta be on alert with a little brother (or should I say little Calvin) on the loose!

Great view, great sledding partner, great day.