Sledding

When the boys would tell people we were heading to Kansas for Christmas, Will always added that we would be going sledding.  Knowing how Decembers can be in Kansas, I knew there was absolutely no guarantee that this was going to be the case...but, I knew there was a higher chance of sledding in Kansas than in Florida, so I let the boys have their dreams.  Luckily God and Mother Nature came through and gave us a couple of chances at sledding.  The first was in Grandpa's driveway with Florida boots (plastic bags tie around their shoes), or what Grandpa dubbed "ghetto boots".  I prefer Florida.

The second chance came in Kansas and I had broken down and bought boots for the kids at this point...so they were a little more prepared.  It had snowed the weekend before Christmas and had been so cold, that we had not ventured much further than the front door.  However, the day after Christmas was in the balmy 40's and I convinced everyone it would be a great opportunity to hit the slopes of Mount Oread.

We found a spot that was shaded (due to trees...which everyone should be able to steer around...right?) and therefore still had a nice covering of snow.  For about an hour, the kids and Eric and Uncle Robert had a great time going down the hill.  I think Aunt Katie and Aunt Mitzi also got in on the action.  I did not.  The trees and John made me feel that this would not be such an intelligent activity.  Only a few people actually ran into trees, with Eric and Robert having the worst encounters.  Luckily they were the two doctors and were quick to diagnose themselves as being "ok".

Here are the pictures:

 Molly stayed behind with Nana and Margaret to take a nap...which she didn't.  But, she and Margaret had a nice time with Nana.  Those two are going to good friends.

 Scoping the lay of the land.  Mary Ann borrowed my jacket as she had not brought appropriate sledding attire with her.

 The most precarious part of the activity (aside from the trees) was climbing back up the hill.  It could be extremely slick at points.

 We had a saucer, a toboggan type sled, and a faux snowboard.  The saucer was by far the best bet for distance.  But, Rose impressed all of us with her balance on the snowboard.  No one else even came close to matching her distances.

 I love that boy's smile!

 Dom and Will had watched the movie "Cool Runnings" about 5 time at this point.  So they had a great time recreating the start of the run.  Feel the Rhythm, Fell the Rhyme, Let's get on up! It's Bobsled Time!!  They also had a great time recreating the many crashes.

 Our future Olympian:

 After a narrow miss where they fell off prior to impact.

 It was really great to have Eric present for this.  Dads are a lot more fun with these sort of activities.  They take risks no mom in her right mind would ever do. 

 I think we took about 5 "one last run"s.  But, I believe this was in fact the last run of the day before we all retired to McDonald's for peppermint mochas and returned to Nana to play our first game of Wits and Wagers!

A word about Wits and Wagers.  We have the family edition and have discovered that as long as your child knows numbers at all, they can play and have just as good of a time as the adults.  Dom loves the game and Will's guesses are hilarious.  He'll have put a number we think is probably as good of an estimate as any and then immediately adds three 0's.  He'll look up with a huge grin on his face.  Molly even places our bets for us, so it is a great family evening of fun.  Even if I lose frequently.  Estimation has never been a great skill of mine...