It's cold. Like totally, bone-chillingly,wicked ,crazy cold. Yesterday was the coldest day in twenty years here in Northern Utah. It was 0 degrees when I went to bed. We have had 5 pipes freeze over the course of the past 4 days and poor Matthew has spent every single spare minute trying to identify the frozen pipes and thaw them out (oftentimes until the wee small hours of the morning). Right now we are down to 1 frozen pipe. We're praying we get it thawed before it bursts. Especially because it's the pipe that runs to my bath tub .... and I think we all know that life would be unbearable without my bath. "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy", right? So I thought I'd reminisce on the brighter side of Winter. (I know- I think it's an oxymoron, too, but I'm trying.)
Last year we had a rather dry Winter here in Utah. We never got enough snow to do much of any fun snow stuff... like Sledding. But, thankfully just in time for Christmas, we got a huge downpour! Matt had the Friday after Christmas off, so we decided to head down the road a few minutes to this killer hill and do some damage. Well, we were mostly hoping to just do some sledding and not do any damage, but you get the idea. They were so excited to get going:
Schlepping back up the ginormous hill was less thrilling... but they were determined little adventurers! I, on the other hand, was huffing and puffing to drag the sled back up. It was one of those moments where you think, "Oh... so I can't just Not exercise for 4 months and eat whatever I want and then run up and down hills like a teenager? Dang it!" Nice way to motivate myself to exercise again, though. 
Victoria and I went down together. I am clearly a Sledding Novice, since I have no concept of how to slow down or change my course whatsoever. I just go down and hold on to Victoria, praying that she won't crack her head open on something. A concept you can see illustrated here:
Shortly before that happened, there were two cars parked in the lot and Isaac and Daphne rode down together. They went so fast that the slid right in between two parked cars! Thankfully, neither the kids or the cars were harmed.
Matt explained to me a few different ways to slow us down: Drag your Arms, Drag your Feet, Or, as you are slowing, just stand up. I came to find out that all three of these techniques are much easier to apply when you are a Giant. (Like Matt) For those of us normal sized folks, it ends up more like this:
Matt mostly stayed at the top helping everyone get started safely and head down a clear path, but we convinced him to try it after a while!
After a few times down with Isaac, Daphne got brave and was ready to try a trip on her own!
We sledded and sledded and sledded until the sun started to go down! Here is Victoria just before we left for the day! Isn't she a doll?!
We had so much fun! I'm sure the kids can't wait until the next time we can go sledding. I guess Winter isn't completely devoid of happiness after all!
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