With Groundhog Day last week, I realized I was not the only one silently wishing for warmer weather. Picking my children up after school they whined as they got in the car. “Mom do you really think we have six more weeks of winter,” they said. Doing what any hopeful parent would I told them “Good Lord, I sure hope not!”

Of course, family back home hasn’t made our transition to Kentucky winters any easier. Last week they all made sure to brag about how they were seeing temperatures mostly in the high 60s, and a week prior even sent pictures of them down at the pier in Huntington Beach.

With a great big sigh, I put on my wool socks, boots, and down feather jacket and prepared to greet another freezing day as I sipped coffee on my way to work that had somehow managed to get cold in just a few steps walking to the car.

I never understood heated cup holders before until my first full Kentucky winter.

As native Californians, me and my family are used to being outside all times of the year. The cold months have slowed us down but have not stopped us. It doesn’t take much to spot us “out of towners” either. Just this week I wore my open-toed shoes to work when snow was falling outside. As I like to say, you can take the girl out of California, but you can’t take California out of the girl!

As my family back home is talking about the trees already blooming, and laying out trying to already get some sun, I am looking forward to possible ice storms and praying we don’t see a day where the weatherman tells us the high will be in the 20s again until next January.

I cringed at a town meeting this week when someone made mention the worst ice storms in Kentucky have taken place in March. And here I was thinking March just might be when everything would start to turn and was excited to see the month turn in just a few short weeks. And with that, hopeful the weather.

I know I am not alone though because in a desperate attempt to get out of the house this last weekend I took the kids to Sky Zone in Lexington. A few hours to wear them out on the trampolines would do us both some good.

I have never seen the place as full as I did on Saturday. Parents and kids of all ages with the same mind set, trying to get more out of the weekend than being cooped up inside waiting out these last few weeks of winter.

As my husband said recently, I bet you it sure is exciting when spring finally hits here in Kentucky. Amen to that!

So to all the rest of you who are feeling a whole lot like me about now, and is silently sending up prayers to the one above hopeful there is an end in sight, we may not be as toasty and warm as those I’m related to on the West Coast, but we have made it most of the way through and have just a little longer to go.

As my parents fly in to visit this weekend I hope they bring some warmer weather that decides to stick around and get us all through these last couple weeks. Although crazy as they are, they are praying for snow to hit us again because winters back home don’t compare to those out here.

I know it won’t be long until the nights are longer and the days are warmer, although I sure hope the weatherman is wrong and it is right around the corner.

The summers in Kentucky felt like an eternal spring compared to the ones I was recently living through in Northern California, and I can’t wait to welcome them back with open arms.

Brittany Fuller is the community editor of The Jessamine Journal and Jessamine Life magazine. She can be reached at brittany.fuller@jessaminejournal.com.