Sunday Sledding

It was a long weekend for Eryn and I. While Pooteewheet was down in Tucson, we:

1. Went to Art Buddy training at the MN Institute of Arts.
2. Went to Ollie's hockey scrimmage.
3. Went snowmobiling (previously blogged).
4. Cleaned the house and the porch rather thoroughly (sans scrubbing).
5. Went to breakfast at Kyle's.
6. Went sledding at Elm Creek Park Reserve.
7. Watched the Vikings - Cowboy game where the Vikings trounced the Cowboys.
8. Went to the Holiday Inn and spent six hours over two days in the water park (nice bed!)
9. Went to Dave and Buster's with Kyle, Matthew and Jonnie to have lunch and play games.
10. Had a failed geocaching adventure in the Elm Creek dog park
11. Ripped two pair of tights and had to go to Target to replace them and the car seat I broke this weekend before going to Ballet on Monday night.
12. Somewhere in there I mixed in watching Year One, part of The Orphan, the pilot of Human Target (bleah), read a sizable chunk of The Phantom Tollbooth to Eryn, and got my butt handed to me in multi-player Call of Duty.

Serious weekending.

The sledding was particularly fun. For the first time, the hill at Elm Creek was groomed, so we could go all the way to the top and get some real speed. Ming and Logan showed up in addition to Matthew, Cynthia, Zoe, Jonnie and Kyle. There are a ton of pictures on my Flickr photostream at the top if you head out there now.

Zoe waving as Cynthia pulls her back up the hill. I wouldn't even carry Eryn's sled up the hill for her. If you can't get yourself and your sled up the hill, it's time to quit as far as I'm concerned.

Logan and Ming going luge. My favorite part was when Logan made Ming sit at the top of the hill in the sled, but wouldn't let him go until everyone had walked all the way back up the hill from the bottom.

Matthew, Kyle and Jonnie. It sounded like a large plane taking off when they went past.

Eryn and Jonnie after a successful run.

Eryn running into trees for the second time over the weekend. Once on a snowmobile and once on a sled.

Cynthia and Zoe on their way down.

And ad hoc picture of me taken entirely by accident.

There's plenty of video as well:

Ming and Logan Luge Runners:


Cynthia, Zoe, Kyle and Jonnie:


Eryn and Me:


On Your Mark, Get Set, GO!


Zoe going down the hill in a prone position. Very amusing.


Zoe with a faceful of snow after going down in a prone position. Not as amusing. A little sad.


Ming on a tube that work gave us...indicating why no one uses them. Too slow.


Zoe going down prone and Eryn not far behind.


It's time to go now...

Sledding at Elm Creek Park Reserve

Last weekend we went sledding with Kyle, Matthew, Cynthia, Jonny and Zoe at the Elm Creek Park Reserve. We did the same thing last year (sans Matthew, Cynthia, Jonny and Zoe), so it's been an annual event for two years (Flickr Photostream), although Kyle's chicken stew with dumplings made a much stronger showing than his uncooked roasts from 2008. On a positive note, I seem to be far enough past surgery (despite going in for a checkup yesterday) that sledding was a possibility. That's a positive development.

Cynthia and Zoe. Cynthia likes to put on the break a lot.


The whole group, except Pooteewheet, who's taking the pictures. Last year you could slide down from further up the hill. This year they left some of the weeds in place. Weeds do not make for a good sledding surface.


Matthew, who doesn't care if he goes barreling down the hill with his children at a high rate of speed. He doesn't believe in foot brakes.


Kyle, likewise inclined. Enclined? But then it's not his kid. Just some nephew.


Zoe likes sledding just that much.


For a while Eryn was practicing stunt falls. She was having fun, but to a 40 year old they looked dangerous as hell. Later Matthew smacked me with a sled as I was coming down the hill and pushed me (you know you pushed me. It was your fault as soon as that sled touched me) into a frozen orange cone that covered a chunk of cement, so I got mine. Eryn announced at the end of the day that she wanted to do "one more" and promptly ran into the same cone, smacking her arm. We thought she was going to hit her leg instead, which she was holding out stiffly in front of her, but she managed to miss it, avoiding a potential broken bone. It'll ruin our whole "grandpa broke your arm" schtick if she breaks something on our watch.


Making sure she's on the sled.


Movies! Everyone sledding!


The Scooter perspective