Happy Birthday, Kylie!

We now have two teenagers in the family. Kylie turned 13 on Monday! The day Kylie was born, we woke up early in the morning to catch the ferry and it started snowing. It snowed all the way to the hospital and I was worried that we wouldn't get safely up the huge hills in downtown Seattle. I remember laying in the hospital bed after she was born, holding her in my arms and watching the snow falling outside. Maybe that's why she's always loved the snow and will do crazy things like sleep out in an igloo.

To celebrate Kylie's big day, since it was a holiday and even Brad had the day off, we decided to go to Snoqualmie Pass for sledding. As if we hadn't seen enough snow lately! It's different when you can leave it up on the mountain, though.

We met up with three other families at a friend's cabin. Last year we were able to sled right at our friend's cabin, but this year there wasn't quite as much snow and it was very icy. We tried a few runs on their sledding hill, but it wasn't living up to our expectations. After this spectacular crash,

(Kylie, Krysta, and Aubrey) we decided to head in for lunch and then try another area. We drove over to the Sno-Park at Hyak and were pleasantly surprised to see it wasn't very crowded. They were just grooming the slope when we arrived, so the snow was great!

I wasn't about to be one of the people who stands in the middle of the sledding run trying to take pictures only to be knocked off their feet by an out-of-control sledder, so these are taken from the top of the slope. We did our share of knocking people over, too. When my friend Gretchen finally convinced me to go down with her, we took out a few kids. Ooops! We were laughing and yelling "Watch out!" the whole way down. I haven't seen the video yet, but I hear it's pretty funny.

As usual, Ben and Anabelle hooked up and disappeared together. They said they were going to be playing over in the trees, but when John and I went to look for them, we found them behind a maintenance shed jumping on a frozen pond. "We only jumped on it eight times, and it didn't crack!" they said when we told them it was too dangerous. From then on we made them stay at the top of the sledding hill. They found a way to hide in a "cave" and pretend they were kangaroos hibernating. Don't ask!

On their last run, all the kids linked arms, hooked their tubes together and piled on! After they took off, the ranger came over and told us trains aren't allowed. Oh well, they had a blast!

It was a full day and everyone had a great time. This is Ben five minutes after we left, sound asleep!

Kylie is always up for an adventure and she keeps things active and exciting in our family. Our personalities are very different and I'm constantly learning from her. She's very determined and will stick with a task until it's done, and done well. She loves to work hard and play hard. She's the one who wants to stay at the Sno-Park until it closes at 4:30 when everyone else is ready to leave at 3:00. She's an amazing young woman and I'm so glad she's my daughter.