The snow was hitting my face like broken shards of glass; the wind whipped at me daring to pull my hat off my frozen, snow covered head. My sister was plowing through the snow ahead of me; my dad and sister tagging along in the back. “This is insane,” I thought to myself “How did I get myself into this?”

It started out the night before. Everyone had received news about a huge snowstorm that was going to hit starting tonight. The meteorologists were saying, at first, we were going to get 6-8 inches of snow. Then it went up to 8-12 inches and then 12-16 inches. I never thought we would actually end up getting that much because whenever the meteorologists say we are getting a lot of snow, it never happens. I went to bed that night thinking about how nice it would be if we could have a white Christmas.

When I woke up that morning, I couldn’t believe my eyes; the snow was already ankle deep and it was still coming down, hard. My dad was snow blowing outside. My mom said this was the second time he was out there. I walked into my kitchen and got something to eat for breakfast. I got dressed and my mom asked me if I wanted to help make cookies. I like to make cookies, especially for Christmas. The ones we made were pecan fingers. That was pretty much the highlight of my day, until the afternoon.

I had just finished lunch and was going to put powdered sugar on the pecan fingers. My dad said, “The snow blower needs more gas. Why don’t you and Heidi come with me? We’ll walk there because you guys can’t sit inside all day and do nothing; it will be an adventure.”

Whenever your parents ask if you want to do something, they aren’t asking you; they’re telling you you have to do it. I dreaded going out into the blizzard that was roaring and growing outside but I had to. We all got ready and the troop that was crazy enough to go to the gas station consisted of my dad, my little sister (Leah), my older sister (Heidi), and me. We live about three-fourths of a mile away from the gas station so it wasn’t that far of a walk.

Standing in our driveway, Heidi and I were shocked at how much snow we had. We started walking with my dad and Leah trailing behind. We walked in the tire tracks on our road to cut down on some of the work we had ahead of us. We got onto the sidewalk on Golf Road. The sidewalks weren’t shoveled yet so the snow was a little less than knee high. We went in a single file line; my dad was in the back pulling a sled with the gas container in it.

I had never experienced anything like this; the wind was so strong it made the snow feel like splinters. The air was nippy and icy; snow was sticking to my eyebrows and eyelashes, snot was dripping out of my nose. I felt like an explorer lost in the arctic trying to get home. We got to the stop lights on Golf Road and the piles of snow in front of the crosswalks were huge. Luckily, there were paths dug out in the piles so people could get through. We crossed to the other side of the road. We were walking and in a passing car I saw one of my friends with her mom. When they went by and saw us, they were laughing.

Not too far from the gas station my dad said, “Do you guys want to get something from Kwik Trip or should we stop at Pine Meadow on our way home and get cheese curds?”
My sisters and I didn’t have to argue about this. “Pine Meadow!” we shouted in unison.

We arrived at Kwik Trip and my dad went over to one of the gas pumps to fill up the gas container. My sisters and I stood by the door to shelter ourselves from the wind and snow. My dad called me over and gave me some money to get a newspaper. Heidi, Leah, and I went inside to get it. We got the paper and started the march back home. It was better going this way because the wind was at our backs. As we were walking there were cars stuck on one of the roads leading into the apartments on Golf Road. My dad helped push them out. Then more people decided to turn in. I don’t know what they were thinking because that was a stupid idea; they got stuck as well and we had to help push them out.

We got on the home stretch towards Pine Meadow Golf Course and we saw someone walking up ahead. We had seen a few people walking but we thought it was kind of unusual. We got closer and my dad said, “That looks like mom, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said, “It does. I wonder what she’s doing.”

We met up with the person and it turned out to be my mom. We turned to go into the golf course and we arrived at the door. One of the employees was outside shoveling and he invited us right in. We walked inside and surprisingly, there were people there. Everyone let out a whoop when they saw us. The building had a bar on the left and a dining area to the right. The place smelled like deep-fried food and beer with a faint smell of cigarette smoke. There were windows surrounding the entire place. The wind was blowing outside and twirling the snow around like a vacuum cleaner picks up dust; it looked like a splatter painting because the snow was going every which way. We sat down and ordered cheese curds and drinks. The Wisconsin Badgers basketball game was on so we stayed to watch the game.

We finished our drinks and cheese curds and put on our coats, mittens hats, and gloves and headed out the door. We picked up our sled and headed home. We arrived on our street and there were cars stuck in the road. My parents went to help dig them out. The snow had died down a bit and even though it was cold and windy, I stopped in the road and looked around. “This is so pretty,” I whispered to myself. “This was one of the best days ever."