Happy Birthday Dad!

My dad turned 62 this year on February 22nd. We partied Sunday in typical Lepage fashion at my mom's house with a ton of food and a sledding party. My parents live across the street form a huge one-lonely tree at the top hill. And Sunday it was covered with virgin snow.  Yes- we finally got some snow (a mere 4 inches but who are we to complain after such a drought?)  and because the snow started out wet and then got cold---well it was pure slick gold. The new participant this year in our sled lot- a toboggan. I real bonafied one. My dad picked it up at a garage sale and we got to test drive it on Sunday. All I have to say is WHOA. I know its probably a lame admission that I have lived in Maine all my life and never ridden a toboggan but well here it is: I have lived in Maine all my life and never ridden a toboggan.
I am getting ahead of myself. After we were all properly stuffed the kids were ready to tackle THE HILL. Now mind you tackling the hill is no easy feat---it really is a huge hill and well you work up a sweat climbing, get to the top catch your breath for a few seconds (or try to Sunday was hard there was quite a brisk wind that literally took your breath away) and then slide. We watched the kids take the toboggan on its first run. Four kids piled on squished together, laughing and giggling and boy did that sled cruise! I went out and took pictures for a while and assisted in sled holding and sled management ( the art of arranging weight on the sled for the best possible run).


 

trudging up...

after trudging

 

 Then I had this brilliant idea. I would go down on the toboggan and take pictures while I went. My camera has a feature that if I hold the button down it takes tons of pictures really fast. I started out fine. Then the toboggan really picked up speed. We were headed for the jump, which from the top of the hill looked like a little bump--but when you are going down at 90 miles an hour really fast it was huge. I hugged the camera to my chest cradling it and started screaming. I thought, as we caught air--the entire sled and all its passengers defied gravity for seconds, we are going to crash and I am going to break the camera. I was screaming. I kind of heard screaming but wasn't really completely conscious that it was coming from my mouth. The toboggan hit warp speed as we headed towards the snow banking before the road. I thought oh no we are going to fly up the banking and crash into the road but the curve of the ditch and steepness of the banking yanked us to a stop. The kids red -cheeked laughing hysterically, "mom you screamed the whole way!" that was funny" and "mom you are a wuss" were what greeted me at the bottom. "Hey at least I did it!" was my lame retort--I will have to save my honor next time--WITHOUT THE NIKON.

My Toboggan Adventure in Pictures

 You know the pictures really do not do my adventure real justice. You have no sense of the speed. *sigh*

I would be remiss in not writing about the real reason for sledding on Sunday- my Dad's birthday. We celebrated my dad, we blessed him with gifts and his favorite part- watching the kids on the hill.
My favorite part of the birthday party was watching my dad blow out one candle on his cake then letting each kid blow out a candle on his cake. Dad you are awesome.

 

kids blowing candles

  Happy Birthday Daddy!