Snow business

For the past two falls, we've taken Biscuit to the fair, where his favorite thing to do was go down the giant slide. I guess he got this from his car-loving parents, but our boy feels the need for speed!

Jeff was off today because he covered a game Saturday, and I took a vacation day, and we drove a couple of hours to the mountains and took Biscuit snow tubing.

I wanted to make sure Biscuit would go through with it because I had no intentions of driving 2 hours then having him say he didn't want to do it.

The tubing runs were at a ski lodge, so I pulled up their website and showed him a video.

"Can we go right now, Mom? Can we ride the sleds right now?" Biscuit asked. "Where's the snow, Mom? How do we get to the snow?"

I explained to Biscuit that we'd have to drive to the mountains, and he went nuts!

"Dad! Dad! We're going to the mountain to see the snow and ride in the sled. What color is your sled, Dad? I like red. Red is my favorite color. Can I ride a red sled, Dad?" 

He was so excited that he was starting to drive Jeff and me crazy with the 1,001 questions he was asking.

When the landscape started changing from hills to mountains, Biscuit started getting excited again. Then we started to see snow.

"LOOK AT ALL THOSE SNOW!" Biscuit shouted.

We set our sites on the 2 p.m. tubing session. I figured if we left the house at 11 a.m., we'd have a relaxing morning, plus Biscuit's naptime would coincide with the trip.

We did have to stop at a store on the way, when I realized that Biscuit's mittens were in Jeff's car ... back at our house.

Luckily, the store we stopped at had all their winter gear marked 50% off.

By the time we got Biscuit dressed, he was wearing a lined ski bib, a puffy coat with a hood, water-proof mittens with the fancy lining and his cool sunglasses. After we were done, I changed him back into his regular clothes. He was toasty warm with not a wet spot on him anywhere.

We got our tickets, then realized we all needed to strip back down and visit the bathroom. Then we bundled back up and headed to get our tubes. And guess what? They had red ones.

I wanted some pictures, of course, so we brought our little point-and-shoot camera. I wouldn't dare take my good camera out into the snow. I told Jeff to go first, then he could wait at the bottom and take pictures of Biscuit and me coming down. Then we swapped off and I went first and took pictures of Jeff and Biscuit. After that, we put up the camera and had some fun!

The people who worked there were so nice to us. I got into my tube, then Biscuit crawled up on my lap. But I quickly realized that my legs weren't quite long enough to push us off at the top of the hill. So the attendant stepped up behind our tube and gave Biscuit and me a push start almost every time we went down.

Biscuit was the only little kid there, so the guys who worked there and the other tubers all made a big fuss over him. They gave him high-fives, and one of the teenage boys bumped fists with him. And of course, he thought he was just as big as they were.

I did have to have one pretty serious chat with him. When you get to the bottom of the hill, you have to get on a conveyor belt to ride back to the top. They're really strict about staying still while you're on it, and about halfway through our session, Biscuit started getting really excited to be back at the top already. He started shifting around, and at one point, he stepped right on the edge of the belt and almost fell off.

When we got to the top, I pulled Biscuit aside to have a little chat.

I pointed at the belt, and said, "When you're on that belt on the way back up, you have to stand perfectly still. If you move around, you're breaking the rules. And if you break the rules again, we'll put our tubes up and go home."

I hated to sound harsh, but for his safety, I needed to make it very clear what he needed to be doing (and not doing).

Biscuit stood completely still every other trip up the conveyor belt. The guy at the top, whose job it was to make sure people got off the belt safely, heard me having the talk with Biscuit. From that point on, every time Biscuit got to the top, the guy would say, "Good job" or "Way to go."

After we were done tubing, Jeff and I were tired. You don't realize how much work it takes to get yourself stopped on the way down, then drag those heavy tubes to the conveyor belt, then keep your balance on the way back up the hill. 

We were also hungry, and I suggested a restaurant we go to every time we're up that way. It's a casual place, the food is great, and the view is beautiful. It's called Canyons, and that's with good reason. It's perched on the side of a mountain with a view of ... well, the canyon.

I ordered a shrimp chimichanga, and Jeff was having trouble deciding between a shrimp burrito and a shrimp quesadilla. He settled on the burrito, but when Biscuit heard "quesadilla," he yelled (a little too loud for a restaurant), "I LIKE QUESADILLAS! CAN I HAVE A QUESADILLA?" And he yelled it right when our server walked up to take our order. She thought it was pretty funny how excited he was.

After dinner, we hit the road and headed home. Biscuit napped for about half an hour, but luckily, that wasn't long enough for him to be really wound up when we got home.

I'm really glad we went today. It was nice to have time together, just the three of us.

Here are a few pictures from our day:

The view from the restaurant.