Saturday, February 08, 2014

3 days of sledding

Over the course of the 3 days snow was falling, we found lots of fun places to sled around and near our house.  We made sure we had lots of times out sledding since snow like this is so rare.

The first evening, we sledded just down the street from our house.  The hill wasn't very steep, so it worked really well for the babies (and gave Jared a little exercise as he pushed the tube, then ran down the hill to make sure it didn't veer into one of the cars parked on the side of the road!)

After the babies were done, the big kids and Jared went over to another street in the neighborhood that had a much better hill and sledded for a while (a little too long, actually!).  They would return there the next evening as well.  We learned that Jacob was quite an adept snowboard-style sled rider, making it to the bottom of the hill a few times riding sideways.


On Friday, we went in search of a good sled hill and ended up down at Memorial Park.  We were grateful to have the 4 wheel drive on the Yukon and easily navigated hills around town.

Memorial Park's hills weren't quite as big or steep as we remembered them being!  We were able to do a little sledding, and it again worked well for the babies because they could make their way back up the hill without much trouble, but we left wanting more!
 

It was a little bit of a walk to and from the hill, and we had to improvise to help Kate and Liam's little legs make the trip without tiring out too much!  We also needed nice pushes to get going.  Once going, we got enough momentum to make it a fun little ride down the hill.


It got a little bit cold and snowy for Claire and Kate, and they sought shelter in one of the huge pine trees near the hill we were sledding on.
  

Yes, Jacob wore Dani's old mittens - they kept his hands nice and warm!

We went to Atfalati Park in Tualatin on Saturday, and that was the best sledding we did the entire weekend.  While the hill was pretty crowded, it is a large and wide hill that accommodated people really well.  One of the big reasons we often had to wait is because our tube was out-distancing any other sled by 50 feet or more (as evidenced by the picture, taken at the end of a tube ride) and we didn't want to run anyone over at the bottom of the hill!

While not sledding, the park at the top of the hill was a huge hit.  The kids spent time on the teeter totter

and on the swing and the slide.  Liam and Kate spent the majority of the time there, which was nice for Dani so she didn't have to trek up and down the hill and for Jared so he could get a couple speed runs in on the tube to see how far he could go (he made it past the corner of the tennis court and is convinced he could've made it all the way across the park if he had time).

Eventually, Kate and Liam decided they wanted to ride the tube down with daddy, and they thought it was a lot of fun.
 

Jacob and Claire really enjoyed going off the jump, which was inconveniently situated between two trees, but which sent them flying, giggling through the air.  Claire would take seemingly forever getting herself back up the hill, in part because she would try to kick the tube up the hill the entire way.  Jacob, meanwhile, was practically on a dead sprint to get back up so he could get back down.

We timed the sledding perfectly because it started sleeting right as we were happily getting into the car!

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