Every Friday I’ll indulge my order-crazed brain in a list of randomness. Welcome to my Friday Fives.

Mark the calendar. Three days into October and eleven days into Fall, we had our first snow. I ran to the bank and grocery store yesterday and remember looking at some pretty dark clouds as I climbed out of my car. I even told the bank clerk how ominous they appeared, so I wasn’t too surprised to see people running with umbrellas into the store as I was leaving. Thinking it was just rain, I started jogging to my car only to look down and see my fleece covered in thick, fat snowflakes. I literally stopped in the middle of the parking lot and just stared in shock and disbelief. I didn’t grab a photo and it didn’t accumulate on the ground, but I assure you it happened. Joe even had to stand out in it for hours during his rehearsal. It was supposed to snow more this morning, but it never made it down from the mountains—which have a pretty considerable amount of snow on them now. It’s only a matter of time, though, and it will still be in the 30s as we sit at the Utah State/BYU game tonight!

In honor of the first flurries of our Utah lives, here are my top five snow memories. I’m sure this list will change dramatically as we continue our mountain living.

5. Tulsa – Ice, Snow, but mostly Ice

Growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I don’t remember a lot of snow. A few school snow days here and there every year, but nothing crazy. I do remember the ice and how one year the weight of it snapped a huge tree in half in our front yard. I can remember standing in my room when we heard the cracking noise and how it sounded like the world was splitting apart. Somewhere we have dramatic photos of the aftermath. Our yard was a disaster zone.

4. Baltimore – Audition Week Madness

Winters in Maryland were definitely an adjustment, but luckily it’s so near the water that we seemed to miss every big snow storm that came our way…that is, until my junior year. Every February, Peabody shuts down classes for their big Audition Week. Most students stay in town to volunteer, but some take trips or their own auditions other places. The snow storm we had dumped feet of flurries and the entire city screeched to a halt. I remember being stuck in my apartment watching QVC—a sure sign of my desperation. Actually, I bought a ring while I watched and still call it my Snow Storm ring to this day. I also remember having a brass quintet rehearsal and having to walk in thigh-high snow to school and arriving completely soaked and crying. It was pretty miserable.

3. Baltimore – Sledding down Federal Hill

Another Baltimore snow memory was the time when we had enough “pretty” snow to deem it perfect sledding conditions. I’d never been sledding before, but I wasn’t going to miss the fun. A bunch of my friends and I grabbed cafeteria trays (Sorry, Sodexho Marriott Food Services!) and headed to Baltimore’s Federal Hill. At the time I was battling some pretty serious tendonitis, so my arm was in a cast that needed a big trash bag around it, but we had fun and even made the evening news.

2. Cincinnati – A Driver’s Nightmare

The worst winters I’ve ever faced (until what may be ahead of me here in Utah) were those I spent in Ohio. One night I was working downtown when we got word of a huge snow storm unleashing its wrath outside. (We worked in a basement, so we were often clueless to what was happening above.) My boss immediately closed up shop and let us go home, which for me included a commute up a huge hill. I spent hours in traffic as we all tried our best to get up this hill in the storm. We were slipping and sliding over the road and I was pretty terrified. As soon as I made it up, I slid into a parking garage on campus and set off on foot, pretty sure that I could make better (and safer!) time walking in the snow than I could in my car. When I made it home, there was a car that had slid down my street and was hanging over the edge of a drop-off in front of my building. It was a nice reminder that I’d made the right choice, no matter how freezing I was.

1. Tulsa – Wedding Shower

You’d think that planning a wedding shower in Oklahoma…in mid-March…would be a safe bet for pretty weather. *eerrrr!* Wrong! A snow storm hit Tulsa the morning of my wedding shower, causing a lot of relatives and friends to not be able to make it! So disappointing, Mother Nature, but we still managed to have a wonderful time…until later that night when my sister hit black ice on the highway and totaled her car. (Luckily, she was fine.) Weather Fail, Oklahoma.

Here’s hoping for happier wintertime tales!