Twain Harte and a day of tubing

I'd heard so many people talking about the snow-play places in the sierras so we decided to check one out this last weekend. The kids had Friday off school so we were outta there. These little munchkins just LOVE the snow. Love it. Love to eat it, play in it for hours and now they love to go tubing.

Campbell was not thinking this was a good idea until she realized we weren't rolling down the hill in a long tube. They also thought the tube lift was more like a chair lift and were nervous of dying.

The tube lift just pulls you up the hill while you're sitting in it. Haha... kids.

 We spent Friday driving and exploring Twain Harte. I LOVED this town. It was super-small and had the best little restaurants and people and beautiful scenery. This is where out hotel was.
Griffin's suitcase actually made it in the car this time but he had no pants in it. This kid has a bad habit of getting dressed out of his suitcase while I'm in the middle of packing so even if I think something has been packed and checked off the list... I'm wrong. So he wore his ski pants around.

 We even looked up some of the available real estate in the area... just in case.

 Ice cream to prepare for a day on the snow

 Finally!!! You can feel the excitement of this crew when they pull out all their snow clothes and get ready for a day of fun

 quinny wasn't tall enough to get a "tube lift" ticket so she had to stay in the snow play areas and bunny hills. Well, she just did not care... she was getting her tube lifted no matter what her ticket said. She hopped in this tube and handed me the rope and up that little hill we went. I think I pulled her bum up that hill over 20 times. And then Spencer did and then we made her pull her own bum up the hill.

 griffin spent his time equally between snowball fights and riding the hills. I'm telling you, we had to drag them off this mountain. Finally I let them take their gloves off and coats off and everything so they'd get cold and want to leave. They're die-hard.

 emery is walking her tube from the end of the tube lift over to the start of the run.

 I got to spend some great time with my special little girl. She is so thoughtful and I was happy she wanted to go a bunch of times with me. She got one of the employees at the top of the hill to get her tube spinning really fast as he shoved her off. I wish I had a video of it!

 griffin has his own tube-dragger-daddy helping him over to the tube lift

 We've discovered that I have "howible" aim when throwing a snowball. Quinn kept making me snowballs with her snowball maker and I couldn't hit griffin even if he was right in front of me. Finally he just sat down and said "mom- sewiously... you have howible aim" I still couldn't hit him.

 Little quinny wanted to go up the bunny hill over and over again. Finally I gave her a little tube to pull and she trucked that thing up the hill herself. She loved going down face-first and she always wanted me to give her a huge shove at take off.

 The big hills are shown behind griffin

and campbell made it into hardly any pictures because she was so intent on getting the most ride down the hill as possible. She didn't want to stop and waste time chit-chatting or smiling for the camera. She had to have beaten all of us with the number of runs she was able to do. There was a guy at the bottom of the hill moving people along and getting them out of the way for the next rider coming down. This was her favorite part. She ran over to me all day telling me the funny things he was saying to get people to go faster.