Mountain Madness

What?!? Another blog post? Somebody must have suddenly found herself with some free time. Some post-holiday, post-moving extra bit of time on her hands...


I have to admit here that I'm still not used to my husband having time off. For the last few years, that hasn't really happened much. This year, he had the entire week of Christmas off and we had big plans to take the kids to the mountains for some sledding. The weather wasn't cooperating well, though, and several days in a row we chickened out of tackling the outing with subzero and single digit temps. I know. Wimps. Our time outside Alaska made us a little soft.


Finally, Saturday warmed up to double digits so we quickly piled the sleds and snow gear into the back of the van, loaded up the thermos with some hot chocolate, threw together a couple pbj sammies, and headed up the mountain.

Apparently, we weren't the only family with such a great idea. That hill was crazy, yo. His first run down, Ziven decided the top of the run looked ever so enticing.

  After hauling himself to the pinnacle, he proceeded down the slope with so much speed, he flipped head over heels in a spectacular crash. Or so I'm told. Thankfully, I didn't see the actual crash--I was still getting Tola dressed back at the car--but the scratches on his face and his wet hair told me enough.

We all agreed that halfway up, or maybe 3/4, was perhaps smarter, and we made it through the rest of the outing without any further crash-and-burn episodes. Hallelujah!

Mostly I stayed at the bottom of the hill calling out "watch out!" like a madwoman every time a kid came careening down from the top of the hill with zero control over his sled and the direction it was heading--usually toward a couple of kids still trying to get their feet under them and stand up after their own wild ride.

It was pure madness on that mountain. And maybe that's why the kids are so eager to return again. After all, we all need a little madness in our lives ;)