Sledding!

Go figure, there was no snow to be found at Christmas time this year. But in the last 2 months, Winter finally decided to arrive. My parents live up in the benches of the mountains. The side of their house has a hill that we have used in years past to do some basic sledding. Last year, my dad and Mark got this idea to build a "ramp" and then dig down the first slope for a sledding track. We had a blast and looked forward to doing it again this year.
Over the recent 3 day weekend, we got our "warm up" as my dad and I dug, shoveled and packed snow for my nieces and nephew. Then we got another chance this past weekend after my parents received nearly a new foot of snow. With the help of my husband, sister, and brother in law, we built up a pretty sweet and steep ramp. We dug the track all the way down to the tree area, though on even the best runs, we were a few feet shy away from the end.

 This is taken about halfway down the "track". 

 The ramp....at least a good 4 feet. We had to build fake snow steps to climb up. 

This is my nephew Spencer on one of his turns going down. He and his older sister made us laugh by all the silly things they'd say on the way down. Spencer's most preferred was to yell "avalancher!" I never knew there was such thing as an avalanch-er. He's such a funny kid. This run he made it pretty much to the end.

Who says snow has to be miserable?