Snow Day

Kael finally got to play in his first snow -- and he had a blast. The Mai's and the DiDodo's went to Alpine Slide at Magic Mountain at Big Bear Lake and spent the day tubing, luging and having snow ball fights.

The ride up was breathtaking. It was beautiful to my adult eyes and to hear Kael exclaim: "Wow, Mom look! I can see everything from up here!" made the scenery extra special. And then he added: "Dad, drive carefully. I don't want to fall off the mountain." I had to second this remark but not because Truong was driving fast. I was getting so green in the gills from the windy roads that I'm surprised I didn't leave a trail of Sonya's Breakfast going up to Big Bear. It was a very close call and I had a few moments where I rolled down the windows, just in case.

We got to Alpine Slide and took a few minutes (or fifteen!) to dress the kids. With the boys clomping around in their boots, we entered the "village" to find out that they were filming an MTV show called "Parental Control." Later, as everyone tubed, Shana made sure to pass behind the cameras several times so I will have to watch for that episode to see if I can catch her in the background.

I've never tubed before so it was an experience trying to figure out the best way to slide down the hill without (1) looking like a boob on a tube and (2) risking injury to life and limb. My butt took the brunt of the bumps because it kept hitting the ground. Patrick said I'm supposed to sit on top of the tube and ride it that way but knowing me, I'd end up going ass-over-tea-kettle and leave a bloody trail down the hill. Not to mention Shana would have taken continuous action shots to document my fall from grace and posted them on the internet. No thanks. I'll sacrifice my ass instead of my face and dignity.

Next to the tubing hill was a luge where you ride the chair lift up to the top, and luge down on a sled. As expected, it was a lot of fun, in a scary "I'm going too fast" kind of way. I couldn't go as fast as I wanted though because you had to push forward on the stick to pick up speed and I wasn't tall enough to lean that far with Kael in front of me. The first time I went a little slow for fear of going so fast that my sled would fly off the lip and I'd sail down the mountain to land in Big Bear Lake. The second time I went faster and almost didn't brake in time. I didn't go a third time and opted instead to take the girls tubing as they were wandering around the village area waiting for us to come off the luge.

Around 12:00pm, we stopped for lunch. The girls were grazing on the snow so we figured it was a good time to stop. We packed up the kids and headed to a park nearby for a picnic lunch. The park was the perfect place for the kids to really get into some snow play as the snow was untouched and there was a lot of space to run. Kael and Ryan immediately took off to make snow angels and snow balls as the adults set up the table. The girls wandered around but not very far as they were pretty hungry.

Afterwards everyone engaged in some form of snow battle, whether it was a full fledged snow ball fight or my and Patrick's "let's see who's got better aim, but you can't move" game. Malia was content to stretch out on her belly in the snow with a spoon and fork and eat her way down. Every once in a while she'd cry and that was my cue that her fingers got too cold and I'd warm them up on my bare tummy. Once they defrosted, she went back to eating the snow, on her tummy, with her spoon and fork.

Finally at 2:00pm (or thereabouts -- it was after Gina did a pretty fragrant #2 that everyone was able to smell through 3 layers of padded clothing) we packed up and headed home. Malia and Ryan fell asleep almost instantly. Gina was up a little later but soon fell asleep. Kael, on the other hand, stayed awake the whole trip home that included getting lost so it took us 2 hours to get home instead of 90 minutes, and was still in a pretty good mood through dinner and his early bedtime. Everything I've read tells me that his good humor despite not napping means he's ready to drop his nap, but I'm just going to pretend I didn't read those articles.

Kael kept asking if it was Christmas again because through everything he's learned at school and books that he's read, he equates Christmas to snow. His linear thinking cracks me up. I guess that's what we get for living in Southern California where's there no seasonal change, ever.

It was a great trip and I'm looking forward to going again. Next time I'll bring barf bags and wear more underwear for padding.

Pictures with comments are posted in I Spy...