Once we got to Pump It Up and the girls saw the two arenas full of various inflatables, they went crazy. The minute we got in the room, they were pulling off coats, mittens and shoes and literally throwing themselves onto the inflatables.

Okay, I was one of the first ones out there. What can I say? I wanted to test everything out to make sure the girls wouldn’t get hurt.

Just takin’ one for the team, as usual.

Within about 7 minutes, we were flat on our backs, absolutely exhausted. We quickly recovered and headed back for round two, which lucky for you, I caught on video.

Before you view this short (short!!!) video, I would just like to say that I can’t be held responsible for the bad videotaping skills that you’re about to see. You try holding a camera while climbing a huge slide and then holding onto it while you launch yourself to the earth.

There is a great shot of my very frightened face in it though, right before I go down the slide on my side. If you blink, you’ll miss it:

Once we had completely worn ourselves out, we all crawled into the largest inflatable (the girls thought we were going to play a game). Allie and I had a little trick up our sleeves, however, thanks to about 20 of you that sent in Christmas cards for each and every last one of our girls:

There were quite a few tears as those cards were read, just so you know. I was crying, too, but just because I was already sore from my attempt at total domination in the jousting inflatable.

Some skills just have to be learned over time, I suppose.

You’re reading Part 3 in a series of posts about our surprise weekend for our Starlite leaders.  To read all the posts — and in the correct order! — go here.