For as long as I can remember one of my fondest memories growing up was playing in the snow and building snow tunnels with my dad. In actuality though, I’m not sure how often this occurred and in fact the only real memory I have is based on a photograph that my mom took of the two of us sitting outside a tunnel. So maybe it only happened one time but the memory that the photo provides is good one and something I’ve always enjoyed.

Its probably just part of being a boy but I’ve always loved to build tunnels whether it was the in the sandbox, the dirt by a pine tree or in the snow. So I was excited (kinda) when we got absolutely dumped on last week here in the MidWest. Supposedly it was the worst single snowstorm in a couple decades. We got almost 2 feet of snow at our house, school was closed for two straight days and the company I work for even closed up shop for a day (which never ever happens…).

After the wind had subsided a bit I took Mia outside and we promptly began work on a giant tunnel that would stretch the length of our driveway, have several chambers, and…well, ended up being about 5 feet long because digging snow is hard work – and it was cold out.

At first Mia didn’t quite comprehend what was going on – she was just excited to be not in school and outside playing with her dad. But when I finally broke through and connected the two ends at which I had been digging her face stretched into a wide look of disbelief – you would have thought we had dug through to China she was so excited she could see me on the other side. So that was pretty cool.

The first tunnel ended up getting somewhat filled in from clearing the massive driveway but a couple days later we dug the tunnel out again and that night received some freezing rain ensuring that it will be there until June. At least we’ll have time to build those other chambers…