Snow Fun? No Fun!

With Bear's vacation winding down, we crammed in a day trip on Friday to the Snowy Mountains (as Keira calls them), so the girls could have their first snow-playing experience. Unfortunately, while Bear and I thought it was a blast, the girls disagreed. Ellie looked like this pretty much the whole time...


...and had a constant whine of, "Maaaaaamaaaaaaa?" which I believe translates roughly to, "People, it is COLD. This stuff is impossible to walk in. Why am I wearing gardening boots, anyway? This jacket makes me look like that kid in A Christmas Story. I can't move my arms!! I hate these gloves, and I hate the snow they're protecting my hands from. I am also beginning to hate all of you. Take me HOME!!"

We did convince Keira to take one trip down the slopes with me, which, in retrospect, took place on a higher hill than we probably should have chosen for her. I screamed like a teenager on a roller coaster the whole way down, but she was paralyzed with terror until we hit the end, and then she burst into tears. I told her, "But it's over now! And you made it! What a brave girl!" She thought about it for a minute and then muttered, "Yeah...I guess I am brave." It took quite a while to talk her into going down a much smaller hill with Bear, but she finally agreed:


After that, we decided to put our poor cubs out of their misery, a full 30 minutes before our prepaid hour on the slopes was up. A couple of sticks in the mud, they are! Guess we'll have to try again when they're older.

Here's a pic of the girls before we left--notice that they are happy, now that they're standing on dirt and know they're on their way out of there!