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“Everyone out to the yard,” Camden announces.
Ryker and Austin wipe their hands off with dish towels and then everyone starts to head for the glass double doors.
Ryler heads for the entry and grabs our coats first.
We stand at the top of Haynes Hill, snowless but still freezing outside. The grass glistens with water from the hose that Everett turned on as soon as we got out here to help the inner tubes slide easier down the hill.
Ten black inner tubes are blown up and set up against the side of the house. This family must do this a lot to have ten inner tubes on the ready.
“Since Juliet is new to the family, and we have a couple of cheaters in the group…”
“Harper,” Austin coughs out.
“Hey! I don’t cheat.” Harper says, shoving Austin’s arm.
“… I’m going to go back over the ground rules,” Camden says. “We will split up into teams. Since Kali is pregnant, she’s sitting this one out and she’ll be the official referee and judge today.”
“Go Kali,” Austin says. “Husbands get preferred treatment.”
“Shut up Austin, Camden’s talking,” Ryker says.
But Camden seems unfazed by everyone’s interruptions.
“That means we have an equal number of men vs. women, so that’s how we’ll divide the teams.”
“Wait, that’s not fair. You guys push harder than us,” Sienna, Camden’s wife, objects.
“Yeah, but we’re lighter than these sasquatches so we don’t have to push as hard for us to go faster. This is good… this is what we want,” Harper says.
“The object of the game is to get all of your teammates down to the end of the hill by pushing them as hard as you can and attempting to knock the other sledder off their inner tube. If you are knocked off your inner tube, you must run back up the hill, get back to the end of the line, and try again.” He looks over at Harper. “You cannot jump back on the inner tube where you were kicked off.”
Wait, we have to try to bounce people off their inner tubes?
“I didn’t fall off the inner tube. I was still in play,” Harper objects.
I chuckle at these siblings squawking with each other.
“You were out, Harper. Ryker practically bounced you into old man Jones’s yard across at the end of the fucking block,” Austin says.
“Damn it, shut up Austin,” Harper growls.
“Language you two,” Arie, Everett’s wife, warns. “There’s kids out here.”
“The team with all of their teammates down first, wins. Everyone got it?”
Harper nods and then walks over and grabs an inner tube off the house and lines up at the top of the hill. The rest of the wives and brothers grab their inner tubes, too, and then start lining up next.
I pull my wedding ring off my hand and store it in my jacket pocket, zipping it up for safekeeping. I have a feeling things might get slippery and I can’t stand the idea of losing this ring in the grass if it slipped off my finger.
Ryker grabs us both an inner tube and hands me one.
Since I don’t want to be the reason we lose, I wait and line up at the very end. I want to see everyone's technique before it’s my turn.
I’m an amateur, I just don't want to look like an amateur.
Besides Harper and Austin who take the first spot at the top, obviously, with an ongoing sledding rivalry to settle, the rest of us end up paired with our significant others.
I guess if I had to bounce someone off their inner tube, I’d rather it be the man who couldn’t keep his hands off me last night.
