Big Bear

Everyday Kyle asks me, "Mom can you take us out of school early today?" "Why?" I'll ask. To which he'll respond, "Because you never take us out early." Well, Friday was his lucky day. Monty had told the boys we'd go camping this weekend, but honestly camping isn't on my 'oh what fun list' at this point in my pregnancy, so we decided to just spend a day in the mountains.
Monty looked on line and found this Alpine Slide in Big bear and thought it looked fun. You ride on a ski lift up to the top of a mountain and then ride this bobsled type contraption down a concrete slide. Tyler, Kyle and Kory were all a little timid upon seeing the slide...however, after we explained it to them Tyler was game. Tyler did a great job going down. He did so pretty slow which held up traffic, but that's Tyler's personality...slow and steady.(This was of course his first trip down. He went two other times and his speed got faster and faster as he felt safer and safer.)I'm not going to lie...Kyle cried that he didn't want to go on the slide, especially when he found out he was going to have to go alone because of his height. Then I explained that he could go as fast or slow as he wanted. He still wasn't buying it so my 'mean reverse psychology mom' side came out and I said, "Kyle, you ask us everyday to take you out of school early and the one day we do you don't want to do what your dad has planned for you." So I admit it was mean, but it worked. He of course loved it once he got over his fear.Unlike the other three boys Trey was never scared. He loved every second of the idea and his only tears came when we went to leave.We decided to go off the beaten path and enjoy nature. The boys of course loved this. This picture is after the boys climbed a small hill. Monty said who ever made it to the top first was the winner. We were both shocked to see Kory take off with all his might. He in fact made it to the top first, with Tyler not to far behind and Kyle coming in 3rd. I didn't realize till looking at the pictures they all claimed their place in the picture with the number of fingers they held up. We visited a small discovery center in Big Bear. They just had a few stuffed animals and told a little about Big Bear. The boys loved this stuffed bear.

And of course our fearless wonder had his own ideas of how to handle this bear!

We love our boys and are thankful for these family days we just get to enjoy each other!

I'm sure you noticed that above Kory didn't go on the Alpine Slide. Kory was so scared to go, but on the way home we gave him one last chance. He cried and cried and wasn't going to do it, but finally he gave in and decided it would be fun. I love this picture because you can see the joy on his face as well as a sense of concurring his fear. One thing we hope our boys learned from the day is that our minds can scare us out of a lot of fun or success. If we give into that fear we simply miss out of things that we could have done and may have enjoyed or been successful in. Moments like this I don't feel bad about pushing the boys to go outside their comfort zone because I like them to see they are capable of more than they realize and we shouldn't fear life...we should face it.