Exactly one year ago today, Feb. 2, Western Springs (and all of Chicagoland) saw one of the worst (or best, depending on your scale) blizzards in history. Two feet of snow and 50 mph winds gave kids not one but two snow days, and we were out there to capture in. The above photos and following article first ran (as "Photo Gallery: Snow Fun (or No Fun?) on Feb. 3, 2011:

Wednesday was a great day to be a Western Springs kid. School was out, and the village was packed with natural, sculpt-able jungle gyms of piled snow. Unfortunately, it was up to the adults to keep those piles of snow off of driveways and out of the streets!

Still, it looks to us like everyone managed to enjoy themselves at least a little bit, even while clearing out the snow from sidewalks and around cars. Click through our photo gallery; you be the judge!

Since this article first ran, Western Springs and Chicagoland are enjoying one of the mildest winters in recent memory with 40 to 50-degree temperatures and no more than a cumulative half-foot of snow, despite meteorologists' predictions that this winter might be even worse than the last.