Polar Bear Plunge 2011

You can always find a bunch of crazy kids in our backyard on New Year's Day. This year was no exception. ALL the adults wised up and decided to forgo the traditional Polar Bear Plunge, but there were still several kids that were out to show off their wild side! These kids (minus the youngest girl) all took the plunge this year.

Looks like J was the brave one and went first!




Logan and Jake were right behind him. 3, 2, 1, JUMP!!









The girls went next:






Does that look on her face leave you breathless?! That water was COLD!

Jackson was so excited to put on his trunks and go swimming. The pool has been off limits since summer ended and he was ready to show of his swimming skills. Except that, hmmm... this water was kind of cold? It took him only seconds to realize that he would not be jumping in all the way. This picture shows how far he ventured into the water. Let's just say that he was quite disappointed with that water temperature - like we'd played a mean trick on him or something!

I've been looking through some old pictures this week and came across this one:

The photo is from one of our first Polar Bear Plunge days (January 1, 2008). Notice the large number of children that participated! And there were about 3 more adults (not pictured) that also jumped in on this day 3 years ago. I wonder why our numbers have dwindled since then??

We do this tradition because the kids love it. And because, truthfully, the adults get some good laughs and entertainment out of is as well. Next year, you can break out that bathing suit at Christmastime because it is guaranteed that we will be out there freezing our buns off every year on January 1.