Snow Capades!

Finally, my turn to play! The boys always have all the fun activities while the girls sit home cleaning and cooking. When I found out mom's could go with the Cub Scouts to play in the snow, I jumped at the chance! Snow Capades is a full day of sledding, hot cocoa, fire building, snow shoeing, and a ton of fun! We left bright and early Saturday January 30th. It was raining at home but as we got closer to our destination, the snow showed it's self in all it's cold, white, beautiful glory!First activity on Jaco and I's agenda was sledding. I asked the scout master if parents could sled too and he said they can but most don't. I was the first adult to go down the hill and it was a blast! Once I went, several other parents joined in the fun. I was a little worried about how the rest of the day would go after being knocked face first into the snow twice within about 10 minutes. It was kind of my fault. The first time I was talking to another mom and we were told to get out of the way. She stepped back just in time for the sledder to slam in to me causing me to belly flop into the snow. Second time, I was talking, again, and didn't hear the warning until I was already on my belly AGAIN! I was not hurt so it was funny! We were so bummed no one was filming it...we could have won $10,000 on AFV!

Next up on the agenda: Fire Building! First the boys had to make waterproof fire starting kits and then test them by building a small fire. Jaco hates fire and has to be the only 10 year old I know who won't even put a stick in a fire, let alone light one. I am not complaining though. Fire is dangerous and if he has no desire to play with it, then I feel that much safer! It came to no surprise that I was the one to successfully start our little fire and roasted our smellows!

After eating roasted marsh mellows and drinking hot cocoa, it was time for sledding. I was smarter this time and stayed out of the way of all incoming sleds. Doesn't mean I didn't sled myself! I love snow and sledding. Jaco was having a ball too. He loved trying to hit some air on the jumps. Big bumps on hard sleds hurt 33 year old backsides. It didn't stop me though!

After the second round of sledding, we got a good workout trying out some snow shoes. We stayed on a nice groomed trail and I couldn't believe what a work out it was! I could not imagine going off trail in soft fresh powder. With a line of 30-40 people following each other, it was not uncommon to see on scout step on the back of another's shoe causing one or both of them to fall over. It is not easy to stand back up with 3 foot long snow shoes on your feet!

Next...LUNCH! We ate family style as troops. Never has a grilled cheese sandwich and soup tasted so good.

After lunch it was time for the 3rd sled hill. We were able to spend extra time on this hill because we finished lunch early. We started races and Jaco showed his competitive side and wanted to win so bad. He and I raced several times and I am pretty sure I won! The video clip you can see is him and I racing and we both wiped out at almost the same time. I recovered better and kicked his booty!

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The Iditarod race was next on our list of things to do. The boys had to pull a sled around a track looking for animals along the way. The animals were wood cut outs of critters so the boys collected them and had to bring them back to the starting point. I chose to sit this activity out and relaxed for a bit.

Once the animals were all collected, we hit one more sledding hill. This one was the most dangerous and they actually had to lower the starting point because too many people had been hurt earlier. They had big pads at the end of the run to try to make it safer. I only went down the hill once at this run because by this point, my booty was sore and I had a head ache from hitting it on the hard snow during one of the runs earlier in the day. Jaco went down several times and had fun but by this point he was getting tired too.

Last but not least for the day was an obstacle course. First the boys went down a zip line to a bunch of obstacles. Once that was completed they had a tug of war. It was so funny to watch! They had the boys compete against the adults. The first tug of war, the adults let the boys win by simply letting go of their end. It was hilarious to watch the boys thinking they had totally won. Then when the adults actually tried, they were able to pull the boys across the ground. The scouts weren't quite so happy this time.

This is Jaco's face as his body came to a screeching halt on the zip line. Yowser!

Getting ready to pull the adults across the line. Good luck with that one boys!

I had so much fun hanging out with Jacob all day. Usually I am the one home with the girls while Justin and Jaco go play. This time daddy stayed home with the girls and it was my turn to play. I was a little worried about the mess the girls would make while I was gone because Daddy tends to not watch them as closely but they did really good. I promised I would let them make a cake the next day if they behaved and didn't get in to my make-up, jewelry, art stuff, etc... They behaved so I followed through with my promise and here is the proof!

***FYI: All of the pictures on this post are from my fun Flip Video camera I got for Christmas. I forgot to take my still camera with us but with the Flip, you can slow the video down frame by frame and then take a snapshot of one frame. Pretty cool!***