shave ice & gelato

We had a "SNOW DAY" today at school! In Hawaii, a "snow day" means snow will be delivered to your school instead of school is canceled due to snow. Twenty tons of "snow" were ordered and delivered early this morning. After all the rain we have had recently, I was worried about the weather. Fortunately, it turned out to be a beautiful day with rainbows in the sky. The temperature was about 80 degrees. A perfect day for snow!

After the first 10 tons of snow were dumped, the first scheduled, Preschool, Kindergarten, and Grade One came out to play. Each class took a class picture and then everyone went wild!! Santa also stopped by for a visit.

Halfway through our scheduled time, the second truckload of snow arrived. The timing of the arrival worked out perfectly as the students were able to see the snow being dumped. As the truck prepared to dump the snow, the students chanted "dump it, dump it!" and then squealed with delight as the snow was dumped in another big pile.

Channel 9 News came to our school and showed a quick clip of our Snow Day on the evening news, but unfortunately so far, it has not been posted on their website. If they do post it, I will do an update and add the video clip. Because I don't have permission to post pictures of my students and I didn't think to take any distant shots, I only feel comfortable posting the snow shots (without students).

Beautiful December morning in Hawaii at my school:

SNOW!

Missing the snow, I did a little search today checking out all the new snow pictures on the web. I found the cutest picture on the Boston Globe's "Second snow hits hard" photo gallery page.

Photo 13: "A young opposum ran through the snow in front of Trinity Baptist Church in Arlington." (picture by: Globe Staff Photo / Dina Rudick)

I don't expect any sympathy but it has been pretty chilly in Hawaii the past few weeks. Yes, I know I am a wimp! Thank goodness for fleece! I don't know what the Hawaiians did way back when without the warm clothes we have today.

On the Big Island, it hailed in Kona yesterday and snow covered the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. It even snowed on Haleakala on Maui! This is a very rare occurrence that only happens every three to five years. The forecast for today was for more snow flurries and possibly heavy snow today and into tomorrow night on Mauna Kea with possible snow on Mauna Loa and Haleakala. The KHON2 site described our weather the best: Wacky Wintry Weather Hit Hawaii.

Here is a picture of Haleakala from today's Star Bulletin article: