More Tradition - Snow Style

I am playing catch-up again with a post about our trip to the snow a couple of weeks ago. 

On the refrigerator of our good friends, Ryan & Elizabeth's kitchen is a picture of my husband, his brother, Ryan and his brother and sister as kids sitting on the tailgate of what looks like an old station wagon, decked out in snow gear having a great time.  As I'm sitting here writing this I'm wishing I had a copy of that picture to show you - it's classic!

Last year over Daddy's winter break I had hoped to take the kids up to the snow for the first time, couldn't wait to... you guessed it, get pictures!  I was so looking forward to seeing their first snow experience.  Sadly we had a hot water leak under our slab of our guest bathroom and the majority of our winter break was spent having our house torn up and in disrepair. 

You may remember in February of 2009 Grammy and Papa surprised us by bringing some snow from their house down in an ice chest and all FIVE grandkids enjoyed playing with it in our city backyard.  

Finally this year we were able to get up the hill and play in the snow!   We joined the Vogeli's and headed to the nearest snow park about an hour and a half away.  It was a beautiful ride and a beautiful day - such a fabulous time we had!

WARNING:  This post may break the record for number of pictures allowed.  I've heard that blog readers don't like posts that are too long, too wordy or have too many pictures.  Well I often am too wordy, forgive me, and in the words of my sister recently - "Can you ever have too many pictures?"
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Ready to hit the road, MckMuffins in hand.  Too bad not much was eaten as we're really not fast food people.

Bundling up in the back of our (rockin') van - love me my Sienna!

McGee excited from the get go!

The first sledding run...

I love action shots and these boys had SO much fun sledding all day!  You may not be able to see McGee's face in most of the photos, but I promise you, he was squealing and laughing with delight the whole time.  I honestly was so surprised due to his typically cautious nature, but our little boy is growing up!

Our little snow bunny

Mommy and McGee had fun too - and were surprised when this gal in lavendar smacked into the back of us and knocked us down the hill!

Taking a little break, just sitting on a rock...

They started out like this...

...the slowly began to turn...

...and slide...

...and ended like THIS with Elizabeth and the younger girls for an audience.

Miss Em's thoughts on sledding...

Much happier in Mommy's arms

Miss Em with a little snowflake below her eye and Daddy hauling McGee up the hill "just one more time!"

When we first arrived the weather was sunny and beautiful, but the parking attendant said the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees in the last 15 minutes.  As we played it started snowing and while we ate lunch in the backs of our cars the snow really started to fall.  Here is the view looking out the back of our van.

Daddy & McGee trying to catch snowflakes on their Cheese-Its

McGee and Miss Abs inspecting a caught snowflake

These guys make me smile

I love this photo of Daddy mid-laugh, it captures the joy and wonder of this incredible day

After lunch we couldn't contain the boys any longer.  Sending my boys out into the blizzard...

We had planned to stay awhile longer, but the weather grew steadily worse and I had to take Miss Em back to the car because she was NOT having the cold, blustery weather.  She was so upset it took her nearly 10 minutes to calm down!  I think she was wet, cold and exhausted - these things usually would make me a bit cranky as well.

Here was Daddy and McGee's last ride down a tiny hill right by the parking lot.  After this we headed down the hill and made it safely to our sunny home (seriously, it was bright and sunny, you would have had no idea of this blustery weather just over an hour away).

Thanks friends for another fun and memorable day - just another carried on tradition made new with this generation!