Today

Today.

Today our family made beautiful memories together. And the beautiful mountain was so naturally lit by the sun on our way down the mountain.

Today.

Today we went sledding up at the mountain with our family, my brother and sister in law and our nephews. It was one of those days that just felt like it was meant to be. The weather was gorgeous. The sky was blue. And the mountain....well the mountain was majestic. This shot was actually one of many that I took today. I was wishing that I had had my tripod but had to make due with holding as still as I could. The sun changed the look of this mountain all day long. When we first arrived, it was gleaming bright white against a bright blue sky. I was certain that this particular scene would be my blip. But as we were leaving towards late afternoon, the tip of the mountain just lit up. It was gorgeous. And it really looked just like this. No fancy editing here. We all ooo'd and aww'd and I just started clicking my camera. I didn't have my usual camera with me but even better, I had my blip camera with the wide angle lens. I was able to capture more of the landscape.

So today was so much fun. We love getting the cousins together as they all truly love one another so very much. We payed for passes to use the sledding hill and rope tow. Usually this site offers tandem tubes. That is what we were hoping for so that our daughter would not get scared. Unfortunately today, they were only offering single tubes. We knew that our son would be fine but worried about our daughter. She doesn't yet have that 'need for speed and adventure' that our son has. So the rope tow up was great. She loved that. But the ride down the hill......she didn't love that. We decided to give it a go because there were lots of kids going around her age and size. And our nephew who is similarly sized was totally ready for the ride. Our thought was, 'we should have her try it because maybe she will really like it'. So I went down first so that I could wait for her at the bottom. My husband said that it crushed his heart to give her the push down. Her eyes were as wide as could be. I think she might have been in toddler shock. When I ran up to her at the bottom, she was quiet. When I picked her up, she burst into tears and just hugged and hugged me. "Oh baby, it's okay, it's okay". "Dat was so scary, so scary". I told her that she would not have to go anymore. But I also wanted her to know how proud of her we were. I wanted her to feel a bit confident in knowing that she went down the same hill that the boys were tubing down. She and I decided to go in and have some hot chocolate. Edit. Hot chocolate and french fries. She wanted french fries too. Of course I had to buy her fries after sending her down on the ride of her life. We played around with my camera as we sipped our hot drinks. She took some pictures of me. I took lots of her. We took some pics of the two of us together. It was a nice couple of hours.

Then we met up with our family again. Everyone had pink cheeks and huge smiles. It was really chilly outside. Our son and oldest nephew could have tubed together all day all by themselves. They were in the groove. I can just picture them in ten years conquering those ski slopes together. It was so cute to see their excitement. And then our youngest nephew, well he had no fear and rode down those hills like a pro. Next year we will call ahead and make sure that the tandem tubes are available. I know that our daughter would do well with that. She loves the snow and we'd like to offer snow activities that are fun for her instead of terrifying. The kids played and played together after lunch in a little kiddy center for a couple of hours. We love cousin bonding time. It is so important and so necessary.

This is the story that I wanted to write about today before hearing about the other sad story that I wrote about instead. I felt like I had to organize my emotions that night. But maybe blip is not exactly the place for some things because it ended up bringing on too much attention. I didn't mind it but my husband wasn't up for retelling the story over and over again. It was still too raw. So I deleted it from blip. I saved it elsewhere but deleted it. I thought that I would explain this right now since the many wonderful and heartfelt comments left on this post now do not have anything to do with the story of today. To everyone who left such nice and encouraging comments and called or emailed with concern, thank you. Processing sad news can be a very difficult thing to do. I take each moment as a learning experience. And maybe I will start a hand written journal for the things that I want to say, but just can't say on blip. Again, thanks to everyone for your commitment to my site.