fun in the snow!

Last year, at this time, we had just gotten back from our service trip in the Philippines.  I will admit, going from the extreme hot climate back to below freezing temperatures was beyond a difficult adjustment for us!  I will never in a million years forget the misery of our first 3 days back.

BUT, on a better note, given that it snowed several times on our trip home for Christmas, we found ourselves playing for hours out in the freezing temperatures the weekend after we returned.  It was a much better "welcome back to China" experience this year!

My good friend and Chinese teacher, Linda, invited us to "go sliding down ice slides".  I was picturing something similar to our Harbin experience.  So, I was a little taken back at first when I saw the tubes, the semi-steep hill, and the many people dragging tubes up the many stairs.

I was taken back for 2 reasons...  I have had a traumatic childhood snow tubing experience that caused my dad to have to take me home after my first try... AND...  my tibia fracture still doesn't feel completely healed...  so I wasn't really sure walking around on ice and dragging a tube up tons of stairs over and over for 2 hours was a great idea...

But, I went with it...  and am glad to say, I faced my fear of ever snow tubing again AND I didn't fall and break my leg... again.

Ready to get in line!

The stairs... of course, I made Emily get out before heading up those!

View from the top--okay, it's not that steep, but it sure felt like it the first time!

Ready to go down!

The line's getting longer...

Feeding the goats

Some wooden seat thing... he's using ski sticks to scoot along.

Ice Skating

Linda's family and Us

Arctic Fox

Bouncy House... China Style!

Joy

Emily

Small 4-wheeler

Giant Ball Thingy...

Lots of room to roll!

Bumper cars... on ice!

Feeding fish to the seals.

Ducks

Hungry goats!  So... I didn't catch this on camera, but Emily tried
feeding the big white goat, and, well... If you give a goat some corn...
he'll want a mitten to go with it!

Emily in the giant ball thingy

We didn't do ALL of these activities, but wanted to show you what our options were!  Lots of choices.  Our package was 80 RMB for 2 activities, plus the "zoo" and the bouncy house were free.  Good times at Nanhu Park!