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It was Friday evening. The snow was supposed to start and keep going till the next evening. Sledding. It was the only thing on my mind. The snow made my mom worry about getting stuck while driving. At school, the snow made everyone discuss the sporting events that would be cancelled. But I was only thinking about sledding. Yet, by the time I went to bed, the snow hadn’t started. I was worried. What if the forecast changed? What if the snow I’d looked forward to so much never came? When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I did was look outside. I sighed a sigh of relief when I saw that the world was blanketed in gleaming white snow. The lake was frozen and lined by evergreen trees, coated in white. Looking at it made me happy. There is something so magical about snow. I love it. Sadly, we don’t get much snow. Just three or four times a winter. And six inches like today was even more of a rare treat. 

I was euphoric about my plans to go sledding with two friends and their siblings at a park that is a short walk from our house. As soon as we got there, we ran up the hill and got in our sleds. We made a train by grabbing the rope of the sled in front of us and sliding down at the same time. Half way down the hill, my friend’s sled turned one way and mine turned the other way and they were pulling in different directions. The next thing we knew, our sleds were tangled and we all fell into the snow laughing. Later we experimented with different ways to sled. We sat backwards in the sled. We lay in the sled on our stomachs. We stood up in the sled, using it like a snowboard. I tried to hold on but I kept falling into the snow. I loved the feeling of the soft white snow underneath me, my friends beside me, the view of the evergreen trees surrounding me, the cold air. Perfection. 

The next day, our parents agreed to take us sledding again. Suddenly, my friend called and said she wanted to try a different place that has a bigger, steeper, hill. “Oh, no,” I thought at first. I was a little bit scared of the big hill but I had no choice. Anyway, how scary could it be? I was excited anyway, sledding is sledding, and I hurried to get ready.

When we got there, it was very crowded. The snow was packed so much, it was almost like ice. As I climbed the hill, I felt the ice slipping under my feet. I tried my best to hold on, looking for parts of the snow that were still soft. My friend and I got in our sleds at the top of the hill and started slipping down before we were fully ready. The world zoomed by as we raced down the hill. We weren’t far down the hill when I felt a bump under my sled. I went flying into the air. It was terrifying but also fun and exciting all at the same time. My friend had told me in the beginning that on one side of the hill there were bumps so that you flew in the air. We intended to choose the non bumpy side, but in our rush to start sledding we hadn’t noticed the bumps. I tried doing some of the things I usually do like going on my belly. It was terrifying. I screamed the whole time but at the same time I enjoyed it.

Afterwards, my friend said she had enjoyed the scarier hill more. I also enjoyed the thrill of excitement. But going on a scary hill is kind of like eating something spicy. When you put spicy pepper on something, all you are tasting is the spiciness. I would rather just enjoy the small hill and end up laughing in the snow. Of course, in the end, when it comes to convincing our parents to take us sledding, we are all happy with any hill, just as long as we get to go! 

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