阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（不多于3个词）或括号内单词的正确形式，并把答案写在答题卡上的相应位置。
When I looked out at the white blanket      covered the ground, I couldn’t help but smile a bit. It was so beautiful. It softened the bare trees and hid the dead grass. In the       (distant), I could hear the sound of the snow falling on the road, the barking of a happy dog, and the laughter of children playing outside, enjoying their day off from school.
The sweet music of that laughter  (bring) back a hundred memories of past winters. I remembered    (catch) snowflakes on my tongue, building snowmen, making snow angels, sledding down hills, and always losing the snowball fights with first      brothers and then my own children. Standing there in that warm coat of remembering made the wind   (little) cold. I looked up, stuck out my tongue, and      the first time in years caught a snowflake on it. It tasted so fresh       clean. It tasted like youth, like joy, and like love. I looked up to the heavens and thanked God for all of my memories and for the simple            (true) that you are never   old to be young again.