Snow!!!

Who knew we could have snow in Florida?  Naples has been making snow for the last 25 years.  They make 70 tons of snow. Nine hundred blocks of ice are trucked in and put through an ice chipper, which is "magically" transformed into snow.  I decided we would attempt it.  I did have to go and buy gloves, because we didn't bring any with us.  The only ones I could find were women's knit--they worked.  We went with the Adcocks and met them at the shuttle parking.  We arrived about 15 minutes before it opened.  We were met with an ice sculpture of Frosty the Snowman.

The first thing that we attempted was sledding.  Wes went with Kara, Janiel went with Ashleigh and I went with Erin.  We were lucky and got right in line.  By the time we were leaving, the line was miles long!!!  We sledded down a hill of snow and stopped at a bale of hay!

Next we did the snow piles.  They divided the piles into three groups: under 3, 4-8 and 9 and over.  So the kids had to split up.  They were in heaven.  Here you can see Nate, Emily, Ashleigh, Kara and Erin.

 Kara liked sliding down on her pockets!

 Erin threw a snowball at me!

 Ashleigh got into making snowballs too.

 They gave a group of kids 5 minutes and then they rotated.  Once again, when they were through, the line was long.

 Wesley and Janiel on the big kids hill.  The workers kept shoveling the snow up the sides.  Then they started knocking down the top.

The girls even liked playing in the un-gated pile of leftover, slushy, dirty, ice chunks!

The next activity was ice skating.  The girls are lacing up their skates (or some helpers were!)

 Then they skated and skated on this waxed hard plastic surface.  It was slick, but not as much as real ice.  So they did fairly well---they were quite pleased!  Erin cruised along.

 Wesley skated circles around all the others--and complained a little bit about the rental skates.

 Janiel was a great helper with the girls.  Here Ashleigh and Janiel are skating along and Kara is taking off in a different direction!

We also found ice sculptures of a couple of Eskimos (is that even a proper term now days?)  Each cute face had to be pictured!  We had a blast.  We will definitely go again next year.  Same plan too, the earlier the better.  Who knows how long the snow will last!!!



Ashleigh



Erin



Kara

Janiel

Wes