Monster Tracks

For Christmas this year, our friend Jaime gave Anders, Bridger, and Lauren each a pair of "monster" snowshoes. They are a kids snowshoe in the shape of a giant monster foot. We've had plenty of snow this winter, and Corinne and I have been able to take a few snowshoe walks around our property. But now that Anders has his own, we can take the whole family out. (At least in theory...)

Jaime and Lauren came out one snowy afternoon, and all five of us ventured outside for our first big snowshoe walk.

There was quite a bit of falling down from both kids. A lot. Much of it was on purpose, of course, because falling into the snow is pretty fun.

It took a while for them to learn how to get up on their own, but once I convinced them that if they fell down on purpose that I wasn't going to help them up, they were pretty motivated. Before too long, they could fall down and get up themselves as much as they liked. I think Lauren fell into the snow so that she wouldn't have to go as far for a snack. She ate a lot of snow. (Good thing it all appeared to be white snow.)

The snow was fairly deep, so the kids would follow in the trail of at least one adult ahead of them. Anders' endurance for snow shoeing has far surpassed his endurance for all other snow activities so far, but that really isn't saying very much. We need to get him outside in the winter more so that he gets used to it.

Before we had made it a quarter of the way around our property, the two kids were ready to head back inside. So I lead them back toward the house while Corinne and Jaime continued on their walk. I walked them back through the woods and tree wells, partly because I thought that it would keep them interested, but at least partly because I thought that it might be funny. As it turns out, I was right.

Watch this video on YouTube or
in the original blog post.

My help came in the form of 'words of encouragement.'

The monster snow shoes were a big hit this winter. We hope that this enables us to get the whole family outside into the snow more often!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders