Ice Skating, the beach and a little thing called lake effect snow!

What do these three things have in common? no, its not the start of a bad joke...its what's been happening here.
First, ice skating..for family home evening we took the kids ice skating. They were both so excited, unfortunately only one of them could skate. The rink only had skates as small as a size 9! yeah so our son didn't get to skate. Our daughter and I had a fun time maneuvering on the ice amongst the hockey players and figure skaters...hey its Western New York...the Sabres hockey team rules! Coming from Utah that is one sport we are adjusting to. So as we dodged in and out of the boys 'checking' each other and stopping (all the while sending up loads of ice shavings into our faces)we were finally able to break in the skates and get used to the ice. It was a lot of fun. She was a natrual! It took her a minute to adjust but after a few tips from me we were off! That girl is a natural athlete. Now I'm not saying she's the next Michelle Kwan..far from it, but she can hold her own. Daddy and the baby and our son watched from the stands. Afterward we went to Tim Horton's for donuts...but we've heard their 'Cwaw-fee is to die for!'.
The beach..well yesterday we had a play date to go to Chuck E Cheese...but with school out for a lot of kids it was packed...so we went bowling.. my kids aparantly don't know what that is..that was crowded to so we went to the mall where they had a huge beach set up and the kids played in the sand. It was a lot of fun.
That brings me to my next item..lake effect snow. Its not little..and if you've ever driven in it in Utah...you have NEVER experienced the full force of nature. I had to do my radio show last night despite all the weather alerts saying lake effect snow warning (which means its coming down) now I'm learning the weather out here changes quicker than my 4 year old changes her outfits..so driving into Buffalo wasn't bad..it was driving out that was a nightmare. I have never seen anything like it...if only I had a camera during it! It would have been quite beautiful..if I wasn't scared for my life! My friend and I ended up leaving the radio station and taking a wrong turn, which led to another and another..needless to say we were headed to 'deep dark Buffalo' as her husband put it..and no one wants to go there. Luckily, we have two very directionally-able husbands and they were able to direct us to the thruway and home. The snow literally comes in horizontally! and we could barely see the tail lights of the car in front of us. It was a pretty amazing experience. Now I can tell my children..'you think this is snow? haha i've seen snow. I drove in lake effect snow in deep dark buffalo and lived to tell about it!'