Ok, so maybe not 10 easy steps. But, it is as easy a change in perception and perspective, a choice to see things differently. And I believe these shifts are where we find joy. My dear friend and guest poster, Heidi Schwandt and her sweet family are summer people. This season though, they decided it was time to embrace ALL the seasons and I couldn’t love her more for it!

Sun, sand, 70s and up that’s been my MO for as long as I consider. Now I have two kids, 3 and 6, and I’ve trained them well: They love the temperate to warm weather and know that asking mom to go play in the snow is often a wasted effort.

The snow, yeah, it has a certain visual appeal – from inside. It’s pretty when it flocks the trees just so and the flakes come down big and fat on Christmas morning – from inside.  But it made my commute a nightmare for a decade and I hated the early season round that threatened my tree branches.

The cold is uncomfortable and requires layers that have to be taken on and off on and off . Ugh.

I was a snow grinch. 
Until…
This last year my family and I found our dream vacation spot in northern Colorado…so much so we bought a cabin there. It’s on a river, tucked back in the trees surrounded by national forest. Hiking, swimming, and a world class town all within 30 minutes of our little piece of heaven. Then winter came. 

That’s where the transformation took place. Yeah we got stuck in traffic lots of it… if you’ve ever traveled Colorado’s I-70 corridor during ski season you know what I’m talking about. Think a 3 hour trip easily becoming a 5/6 hour ordeal. And it got plenty cold…I think -30 was our low after New Years! 

But something started to shift in me….being stuck in traffic meant more time to just talk to my husband. While the kids played on their tablets we got to have conversations that we don’t often find time for during the work week. 

When it was -30 below we learned how amazing a good hot fire while staying in your pajamas all day can be. We played checkers and pick up sticks with the kids, opened a good bottle of wine, and had family movie night.

A few weeks back we got up to our cabin and the snow walls down the road to our cabin were so deep my daughter exclaimed, “Mom the snow is higher than the roof of dads truck!” The next day we suited up the kids and dig ourselves the most amazing snow tunnels and chairs and house ever. I’m not sure who had more fun the parents or the kids. Last weekend the snow was even higher so now my husband, who is 6’1, plans to dig a cavern out for himself to stand upright in. We’ve also indulged in a few ski days, dog sledding, and the hot springs this year.

We still aren’t hard core winter people but for the first time we’ve stepped out to find joy in what winter has to offer. My kids LOVE this new side of their former grinchy parents. And we are glad we have found our Snow Happy.