Spring Break-Less

A miracle occurred around our house over Spring Break, the miracle being that no one ended up in the ER.  

Just a few hours into day #1, we soon realized that our decision to stay home and take it easy over Spring Break may not have been a wise move.  We quickly discovered this is a dangerous prospect because kids who stay home tend to get bored, and more particularly, the kids around our house like to stave off boredom by entagling themselves in bizarre and dangerous high adventure antics.  Within the first six hours of their vacation they tried their hand at two
never-before-seen sports...

Tarp Jumping off the tool shed:
I think Connor and Severin have been watching base jumping or something on some crazy x-games channel and wanted to give it a try.  Thank goodness they didn't try it off the barn roof and opted for the tool shed instead.  I thought for sure someone was gonna break their arm.  Luckily I don't think the boys ever summoned the courage to actually jump.  Whew!

And Pallet Racing:
Apparently skateboarding around the driveway isn't compelling enough.  The boys found an old pallet and attached a couple of skateboards underneath and then surfed it down the driveway.

 

The boys quickly learned that their erroneous assumption that a croquet stick would be a great makeshift rudder/brake was, quite frankly, beyond inadequate.  As was my decision to stand downhill in a small buffer zone off to the side for a little photo-op of their perilous pallet adventure.  

This was taken just as I realized there was no buffer zone and I had to leap into the gravel to spare my life:

Despite the fact that the croquet stick was useless both for steering and for braking, the cozy barbed-wire fence proved an excellent and fail-proof stop gap.

(uh, look how huge my shadow is! Holy Cow!

it appears as though I could use a little P90x.)

They made several runs until Connor's friend Severin suffered a classic pallet surfing injury.  The poor kid got his hand stuck in the slats which makes it quite difficult to exit the moving vehicle should it suddenly lurch to a stop upon impact with gravel.  After rocking back and forth for several minutes in the fetal position while squeezing his mashed up hand, Sev got up and announced he was officially retiring from their new-found sport.

 
...And to think this was just day ONE!  I was going to have to come up with a plan if these boys were going to survive the rest of the week unscathed.