My family and I did last weekend what a lot of families did last weekend. We got out of the house and went to the mall.

I know, I know. It's the last place you feel you're going to get any exercise at all, but frankly, with the eighty feet of snow still on the ground, we were hoping to change the scenery a little bit. That was Saturday. Go to the mall, walk around a bunch, check out the animals at the pet store, and grab a quick bite at the food court. Walk around a bunch more, and voila: change of scenery.

The endless winter is serously taking its toll.

My daughter, now three years old and change, wants badly for Spring to come. Of course, we all do, but she really feels like getting some fresh air these days. She wants to go out and play in the street, because up until Monday's snowstorm, that was the only surface free of snow. My driveway? Forget it. It hasn't seen the light of day free of the old-growth ice and snow since early February.

There's a small, eight-square-foot patch that is bare cement available, so my wife broke out the chalk and the three of us played hopscotch on our small area we had available to us. After a few minutes of hopscotch in the sun, we started chipping away at the ice in order to fish items out that had been embedded since January, like shovels, sleds and brooms.

We even found a sock.

My daughter, though, still hasn't forgotten that Spring is supposed to be here by now (technically, anyway) and is literally pleading with the snow to melt so she can get down to the business of messing around in the backyard with two buckets full of water for two hours at a time.

Honestly, all hyperbole aside, I fear this winter may never end. Monday morning promised rain and highs of five degrees. It brought a blizzard and more cold.

My dog is molting at a ridiculous rate and that requires cleaning the stairwell of furballs twice a week instead of once, and all that sun we got on the weekend was fine, but isn't a lot of help at -5 C.

Does Mother Nature even remember she's supposed to melt the snow this year?

I would ask myself, but I'm afraid I might upset her and she'll drop a tree on my house.

Got a yen for a cold-weather outing for the whole family that won't cost you an arm and a leg, gets the kids some fresh air and won't kill mom and dad?

Try the sugar shack at Cap St. Jacques Regional Park in Pierrefonds. For just a few bucks, you get a horse-pulled wagon ride to and from the farm, maple tire on the snow, and whole bunch of fresh air and sunshine. The sugar shack is open weekend at Cap St. Jacques.