As a kid, I loved winter.

I grew up in Michigan, so winter was a FULL season. Snow fell in early December and stuck around through late April. Whenever my mom had a day off work, she would take me, my brother and my sister to our local sledding hill — the steep, sloping face of our high school football field — where we would glide downhill on our green plastic sleds, and then clamber back up to do it again.

As I got older, I fell out of love with spending winter days playing outside. Snow days turned to car problems, slushy commutes and inflated heating bills. The magic of winter started to wear off during high school when my varsity coat and Vans failed to keep me warm during walks across the student parking lot, and then evaporated completely in college, when my fake Uggs and college logo-branded Columbia fleeces completely soaked through during cross-campus strolls.

My apathy toward winter followed me around during my time in Chicago and Ukraine, where cold became just one more obstacle between me and life.

I just had to pick one of the three Peace Corps countries that even has a winter, didn’t I?

But then… something magical totally expected happened.

I moved to northern California — the Sierra Nevada foothills, to be exact — last winter for work, and fell back in love with playing outside.