The Secret Is Out

When we first moved to San Diego I found it amusing that people wore coats in the winter. I think there was maybe two days the whole first year that I even wore a jacket, and we never turned on the heat. After a couple of "winters" there I started bundling up a little more and even turned on the heat a few times. Five years later I found myself living in San Diego wearing a coat.

Then we moved back to snow country in the middle of November and I thought I was going to freeze to death. Even though I had lived here for most of my life, the short time in heaven ruined me. My body had acclimatized to the warmth. Needless to say I do not spend too much time outside in the winter. Once the snow starts to fly I am happy to find indoor activities to keep me occupied.

The only problem with this plan, is the fact that I have children. Children who do not care how cold it is, they want to be outside sledding and playing in the snow. I can't blame them. I was the same way when I was younger. Emily was 6 1/2 and Joseph was 2 when we moved here. So I bought a sled and told them that the "hill" in our back yard would be perfect for sledding. (and it was for a 2 year old.) They seemed happy going up and down the little hill.

A couple of years past, eventually Emily started to ask if we would take her sledding on a big hill. We signed her up for ski lessons and she was happy again for a while. Every now and then, after they had been sledding in the back yard, she would mention that we could take them sledding on a bigger hill. Luckily whenever she would really start to push the subject, some poor child would be on the news with an injury from sledding. That was enough to deter Emily.

This year when it snowed my kids happily went out to our little hill. Then after the last big storm Joe's friend Charlie invited him to go sledding and my secret was out. It is a lot more fun to go sledding on big hills. I already knew this, because we had great sledding hills in my neighborhood when I was young and I loved going sledding as a kid. Joe came home and told Emily and Josh how awesome it was, so they all started begging me to take them. Over Christmas beak I loaded the kids and the sleds in the car and we went sledding with some friends.
In the neighborhood where I grew up there was a park that had a great sledding hill, and we have a similar park by our house. It is like a big bowl, so the kids don't go out into the street.

I have to admit it was lots of fun.

Because it was Christmas break there were a lot of people on the hill. The kids were pretty good about making sure their path was clear before they started. However, people who were not on sleds were not very careful about making sure they were not walking into a sledders path, so there were a few hits and a lot of close calls. Luckily no one was hurt in the crashes.

We stayed at the park all afternoon, and by the time we left Josh was too tired to walk to the car. Now my kids are waiting for another big snow storm to come, so that we can go sledding at the park again. I can't wait either.