Winter Fun Day 2009

Gage had his basketball game this morning. His team won; however, they don't keep score. He has alot to learn about basketball. It just doesn't come natural for him. I enjoyed watching them all play though, it's pretty cute when they dribble a few times and then run with the ball.

After Gage's game we drove to Mandan to pick Emma up from her sleepover. Jen was pretty excited that she got Emma to sleep at 10:15p! LOL! That's still later than I would like, however it was WAY BETTER than 1:30a! She wasn't too terribly cranky today, so that was good.

After lunch we headed over to Hillside Park for the Cub Scout Winter Fun Day. It was pretty darned cold out. It was definitely too long to stand outside for 3 hours when it's 20 degrees. If I am going to participate in these type of events, I'm going to have to get some snowpants AND some warmer boots. The kids seemed to do well. They both have been outfitted in new winter gear within the past couple of weeks. We've been finding stuff on sale for the end of the season and thought we should buy them now instead of waiting until next fall when they are full price again. I had been searching the internet to find some snowpants to match Emma's coat and there are absolutely no brown or blue Columbia snowpants ANYWHERE! I ordered some snowpants from LLBean thinking they were close to the same color and it was totally off. I sent those back and found a couple of pair on LandsEnd.com. They will send you fabric swatches so that is a great way to check out the color without having to order something and then send it back if it doesn't match. Once I got the fabric swatch, they were no longer available on the web-site so I called them and they said it was very low availability, but I did get them in the size and color I wanted. They aren't an exact match, but they are closer than I am going to find anywhere else. After today, I see that the blue probably wasn't the best route to go colorwise. They are going to be hard to keep clean. Anyway, both kids stayed warm AND dry. Because their new snowpants fit right and could be tucked into their boots, their feet even stayed dry. Emma had to get some new boots too because she said that her old ones (Gage's hand-me-downs) were too tight on her feet when she wore thicker socks.



Gage and Emma showing some good teamwork! I couldn't believe how well they were getting along. I thought Gage was going to get pretty tired of her because she was sticking to him like glue. However, that wasn't the smartest thing to do because when they were numbering off the kids in a 1-2, 1-2 fashion, she always got a different number than Gage. She was a pretty good sport about it though and would go onto the other team.



Gage and Emma hopped on this sled to take a ride instead of pulling the other sled with all of the Scouts. It was supposed to be Scouts against parents. I can't blame them for wanting to ride instead of pull!

Hot chocolate is always a welcomed beverage when the temps are in the 20's!

Emma testing out the snowshoes. She did pretty well with them. I could have benefitted from a pair of snowshoes myself. The snow was knee-deep thoughout the entire park and everytime I tried walking I would break through the snow up to my knees! That's quite a workout!

Gage takes his turn with the snowshoes.

Emma taking a little break. You can already see those dirty knees! Oh well!

Snowshoeing is a little more difficult when you're trying to roll a tire in front of you! :-)

Our last event of the day was sledding. The kids just couldn't wait to do this and they were upset that they couldn't do it until last. I think part of the reason they wanted to do it so bad is because Gage's school teacher was running that station. Her older son is big in Scouts and I think she is a den leader? The older Boy Scouts were manning most of the stations along with their den leaders.

Walking back up is never as fun as sliding down! It was really getting cold at this point and I was begging the kids each time time to make that their last!

Gage is sliding along at a pretty fast pace! He nearly knocked the guy over at the bottom of the hill. They had spotters catching everyone before they came to the end of the hill so they wouldn't faceplant on the concrete path.

We had to stop at Starbucks on the way home to get warmed up with some coffee and hot cider. The kids were thrilled that they got to get something too!

I decided I didn't want to give Emma her melatonin tablet tonight until I have a chance to read more about it. I read to her, then read to Gage and when I went back into her room after reading to Gage, she was hiding a pen and her journal she had in bed with her. I took them away and she told me she can't sleep if she doesn't write. I told her I was going to lay with her until she fell asleep and she replied, "Well, I guess you're going to be in here a long time then!" Boy was she WRONG! She was out in 15 minutes after I said that. I'm sure she was exhausted from being up so late and then being outside all afternoon being active. I nearly fell asleep in bed with her. I suppose I should get myself to bed since we lose an hour of sleep tonight. I'm not going to want to get up for church tomorrow!