Tube World!

It has been cold and dreary here since Christmas.  Though the kids have had tons of new toys to keep them busy and fun friends coming over to help pass the time, eventually we all just got tired of being indoors.  We were ready for some snow!  So ... this Sunday we set out to find some and have ourselves some outdoor winter fun.  We found a great little place called Tube World near the Cataloochee Ski Area outside of Asheville & it turned out to be just what were looking for.  We didn't really intend for it to be night tubing.  It just so happened that tickets were all sold out until the 6:00 pm session.  But, in the end, night tubing was a total BLAST!

Without a doubt, the most memorable part of this trip was how completely and totally fearless Little Miss Cate was on the hill and how much she LOVED it!   None of us was sure whether she would love it or hate it (though, knowing her, it was bound to be one or the other).  She barely met the minimum height requirement of 42" and there was no lap riding allowed, so if she was going to go flying down the big snow hill like the rest of the (much larger) kids, she was going to have to go it alone.  We might have fudged a little and told her that she would float down nice and slow just to get her to try it one time.  Well, once she tried it, she was hooked!  She kept going again and again and again faster and faster and faster until we had done all we could do.  It was awesome!  Max had fun being spun down the hill and working in some stunts on the way down.  Jake and I were just happy we survived ;)

Here are some fun phone pics from the night:

Cate was just so excited to be putting on her snow gear and heading to the "Winter Woods"

Snowball fight!

Just got snowballed in the neck and snow went down her coat.  Eeeeek! 

Soooooooooooo pumped!

It was really COLD!  (19 degrees! Brrrrrrrrrr......)

All of us (a rare shot!)

Yikes!  Hillbilly Jake's on the loose! 

Couldn't get Max to stand still for a pic, so this is the best I could do ...

Video of Max heading right back up for more!

This video shows the end of a run that Jake and Cate did side by side.  You can actually see her pop up out of her tube when they hit a bump at the bottom!