For Spring Break...Some Winter!

The kids are on spring break this week. On Tuesday I took the three older kids and two of their friends for a day of tubing on Mt. Hood. In the four years we have lived in Oregon, I have never been to Mt. Hood yet. We went to the Tubing Adventure Park at Mt. Hood Skibowl. They have a tubing hill that is served by a tow lift. It was AWESOME. I loved sledding as a kid, but as a grown-up, having to trudge your way up a hill through knee-deep snow somehow takes the thrill out of it. But if you have a lift-- now that is the way to tube!

As soon as we got there, the kids immediately jumped in the snow and started playing.

Can't wait to get in the snow.

Camryn just can't get enough!

Sliding down the hill, no tubes required.

 Then we got tubes and took got towed to the top of the tubing hill.

Jackson and I spent the day tubing together on a double tube.

The tubing hill.

Looking up the tubing hill from the bottom.

Jackson was in heaven!

Connie after a tubing run.

Riding the tubes up the towing lift.

Jackson riding his tube up the lift.

They even had one tubing run that was carved out into curves so you would go up the sides of the ice walls.

Jared heading down a tubing run.

Connie and Camryn ready to head down the hill.

After our two-hour tubing pass ran out, the kids spent another hour and a half playing in the snow and playing in the indoor kids play area.

Jared and Connie working on a snow fort.

Connie piling up the snow.

Camryn building her defenses for the snowball fight.

The kid-sized snowmobile track (we didn't do this, but it looked fun).

They had an indoor jungle gym with a ball pit. The kids had a fun time burning off whatever energy they had left after tubing.

The indoor jungle gym

A slide and crawling tube.

Okay, so maybe the building for the jungle gym isn't the most posh ever.

Jackson loved digging in the snow.

Camryn in the ball pit.

Obstacle course

There was another "advanced" tubing hill, further up the mountain (right past the play area). However, this hill was not served by a tow lift, so we didn't try it out.

The "advanced" tubing hill

The lodge

Before we could get back into the car the kids had to take one last dive in the snow bank next to our parked car.

One last dive in the snow.

Just to prove I was there too....

P.S. You would think that with a lift I would avoid soreness, but pulling Jackson in his tube across the snow at the bottom of the hill and the top gave my arms a workout!