Throughout middle school, high school and well into college, I took French. (I must’ve known that one day I’d live in Canada, eh?) The phrase “Il neige!” (“it’s snowing!”) has been a favorite joke in my family for many years. I remember the day I shared the phrase with my dad, who decided there was no way “il neige” could mean “it’s snowing” since there was no “-ing” ending on it. He made the phrase his own and insists it’s really “il neig-ing,” refusing to pronounce it any other way, which often caused me to get all riled up as I would correct him time and time again over the years. After nearly 15 years, (Wow, has it been 15 years since 7th grade?!) I’ve decided to give up and just accept that my dad will always say “il neige-ing,” completely disregarding correct French grammar in order to tease me. The phrase came to mind this morning, though, because today I got to experience my first real Canadian snow. I woke up and rolled over to see it snowing lightly with just enough snowfall to dust the grass and almost conceal it, and I couldn’t have been more excited.

The next logical step was to grab the camera, of course, and call my parents to bug them at work with an excited “Il neige!” Truth be told, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen snow since I’ve gotten to Calgary, but this is the first time it’s snowed enough and stuck to the ground to be considered real snowfall. Flurries that only lasted 10 minutes and didn’t stick don’t count. And no way was I going to miss out on an opportunity to photograph Oliver and freshly falling snow. As I’m standing outside bribing the dog with a treat to sit in the snowy grass, (he hates wet grass) Rob walks out front to see what I’m doing and has decided I’m completely crazy for not only getting excited about the snow, but rushing outside in my pjs to take pictures with the dog. To each his own! The pictures I took are now in our gallery … the generic snow scenes and stuff are under “miscellaneous” and 15 pictures of Oliver in the snow are under “oliver.”
Happy first snowfall, Calgary!