The Stingeries: Shahdag Sledding Weekend

This past weekend was a three-day weekend so we decided to take advantage and head up to see some snow and do some sledding! We have had all the snow gear for ourselves since Norway collecting dust and goodness knows barnehage prepared us for all three girls to be warm in their wool!

We left Friday mid-morning for the three hour drive to our resort. We stopped around two hours for some lunch at the Rixos Guba hotel and got a chance to see some gorgeous snow. Seeing fresh snowfall on tree branches is one of my favorite sights!

After we arrived at the hotel we didn't waste anytime in heading out into the snow. Two things I learned quickly - 1. The people at barnehage (Norwegian daycare) who layer on wool, snowsuits, hats, gloves, boots, etc. for multiple children every day, twice a day - just wow. I feel like I should call Madi's old teachers in Norway and thank them for the work it takes. I did not realize now that we have multiple kids how exhausting just putting on the gear can be. 2. It is quite possible we spent more time putting said gear on and off then was spent outdoors over the weekend - HA!

That evening we had patience-testing wait for our food that ended up meaning dinner for two in our room after putting the girls to bed. But it's quite possible the tomato soup made it worth the wait.

Saturday we had breakfast and then headed back outdoors. We spent the entire day outside breaking only for lunch. The twins napped in their strollers like they used to every day in the Norwegian-cold and Jason got some one-on-one sledding with Madi. Olivia refused to walk in her snowsuit. Period. She sat grumpy in the stroller until after she saw both her sisters going down multiple times and having a blast. Then she started sledding, but unfortunately I didn't capture her on video (and just realized pictures either - fail!) like I did the others because my phone died. Madi also decided she wanted to go solo and after on successful run she totally ate it (captured on video of course) and needed a break. We got her to go back out again with us for a few more runs before she wanted to go solo again and ate it. I think she just isn't quite heavy enough to be able to steer (plus the steering isn't fab on those anyways). We told her she was brave to try again by herself, but that we would like for her to go with us the rest of the time. We got her to do a few more runs before heading back into the hotel to meet-up with friends for dinner and some time in the hotel's playroom.

Madi sledding with Daddy -

Evy sledding with Daddy -

Madi sledding solo successfully -

Madi sledding and crashing -

Impatiently waiting for their turns. Neither was happy I asked them to wait a few minutes for Daddy to take them. However hauling 50+ pounds of baby up the sledding hill to go down with them is hard work y'all!

After our fun in the snow we turned on Animal Planet and Liv was thrilled with the show Pandamonium, hehe.

On Sunday Madi said she didn't want to sled, but instead build a snowman so we headed out for a short bit before making our drive home. Once we were out though she wanted to sled and kept asking to ski after seeing kids on skis around her. We told her that the next time we go to the mountains she can try a ski lesson if she'd like. The girls did a few runs and Jason put Evy on the sled going solo (we were on a much smaller hill then in the videos from the day before).

It was not great snowman-building snow so just use your imaginations. And bravo to us for having carrots on hand as noses otherwise Madi's dreams of Frozen might have been thwarted - ha!

On the drive home we stopped in Shabran to stretch our legs and saw this gorgeous building. It's also a regular occurrence to see cars weighted down with fruit in every possible space, but this time we captured a picture of it. ;-)