The Times They Are Changing

Me & Max, Winter 2008

Back in the day, five years ago when Max was only nubbing one year old, times were different.  We could take him tubing at the Theo Wirth tubing hill.  Hold him in our laps and coast down the hill.  Trudge back up the hill with toddler and tube in tow to do it all again.  For a good 10 minutes anyway, until we couldn't keep his mittens and boots from falling off and and we'd retire fearing frost bite setting in. 

It's been five years since we tubed at Theo Wirth park.  And now we've got six little mittens and boots to make sure stay on hands and feet, so we needed to thoughfully plan a good time to take our whole crew tubing.  And we did just that last week.  Almost.

I researched and found that kids tube free on Wednesdays.  Joe and I figured out a couple Wednesdays that we could leave early from work and held the time on our calendars.  We saw that last Wednesday was going to be mid-30 degrees.  So we divided and conquered, me leaving the office by 4pm (huge feat) to go pick up Max, Otto & Wren and meet Joe at the tubing hill by 4:45pm (huger feat), leaving enough time to tube and still get home for dinner and the whole nighttime routine.



Here we are after getting the whole family all bundled up in the parking lot of Theo Wirth park. You can tell from the wet cement that it was balmy out.  Our whole plan couldn't have worked out any better...

...except that when we went to get our wristbands to rent tubes they looked at me and Joe like we were crazy.  Apparently the rules have changed, and unless your taller than Max you can't go tubing.  Not by yourself.  Not in the lap of your parent.  I tried to sweet talk them about how careful we'll be.  How when our darling oldest son was just 11 months he got to go in our laps.  That we're just trying to let our whole family experience the thrill of their great tubing hill.  He wasn't changing his mind.

Lucky for us there was a sledding hill (not associated with the strict tubing rules of the P&R department) less than a mile away.  Even better that I happen to schlep a couple sleds in my trunk throughout the winter.  And furthermore, all five of us were already in snowpants. 

The boys were a little sad because they wanted to tube, not just sled, but ended up enjoying Sunset Hill. 

All the while on this outing I just kept thinking how the times are changing.  I vividly remember piling into the back of a pick-up truck for a drive when I was little.  At Max's age I'm pretty sure my sisters and I were driving ourselves on 4-wheelers. Oh the times they are changing!  And yet there are some things that we're going to keep the same for our crew.

This little one, who had her 1st sledding hill experience at a few months old (and our only snow fall last year), loved it. The more we spun around and around while sledding down the hill the more she giggled.

 

Pretty sunset that we sledded down toward.  Must be why they call it Sunset Hill.