I'm dreaming of a white. . . Easter?

I went home for Easter this year, to spend some time with my parents, celebrate my dog Rudy's 17th birthday, and to hang out with my uncle and his new "lady friend" who were coming to town. Behind Valentine's Day, Easter is my favorite holiday of the year (because I interpret it solely as a holiday celebrating the coming of spring--my favorite season), and I was really looking forward to spending some time in the Colorado sunshine.

One small problem with this plan: in the 9 years since I've lived at home, I had forgotten that the front range of Colorado is infamous for its dastardly shoulder season weather. While you could go practically all winter enjoying sunshine, mild temperatures and barely a flake of snow,
October and April are inevitably freezing cold and marked by blizzards.

Somewhere in the time away from home, I had forgotten how I never got to trick-or-treat without the protection of a ski jacket and hat. I had forgotten that we got more snow days in April than all the other months combined. And I had forgotten that Colorado does not, in fact, have a springtime. It goes straight from winter to summer, almost literally overnight.

A case in point: this year, it snowed all Easter weekend. When we finished Easter dinner on Sunday, it was 25 degrees outside and there was probably about an inch of snow on the grass in our yard. The following morning when I woke up--less than 24 hours later--all of the snow had melted and the temperature was creeping into the 70's.

Not exactly what I was expecting for my Easter vacation, but we still managed to have a good time.

My uncle and his "lady friend," enjoying Easter in Colorado

Our house, just prior to the heaviest of the snowfall.