Submission (#2913) Approved

Mia was excited to get to Strynhalde with her dad Gavin. He was showing where she grew up in the small snowy town that seemed to be covered in a fresh set of snow. Gavin offered to show her some of the various games they do during this season including: Snowball fight, Snowman, and snow pie eating contest.

“The first event we will check out is the snowball fight, everyone will break up into various teams and they will get a set amount of 20 snowballs a piece and the goal is to take out the other team’s flags at their fort.” Gavin points out the multiple forts that have various colored flags above them. “Once all of the flags are taken out then that team is out, and this event is all about precision and speed”. Mia looked around to see all of the teams getting ready to start and decided this wasn’t something she really wanted to do. 

After about 10 minutes the final team standing was the blue team, and they had only one flag left. The arena was  changing for the next event which would be the Snowman competition. “So for this event the goal is to make the most stable snowman that can survive the obstacle course after making them. There will be multiple challenges it needs to withstand including snowball swarm, water balloon brigade. The snowball swarm basically is just the judges throwing snowballs at the snowman to see if it was made to withstand this additional pressure. The water balloon brigade is all about the snowman staying up because once that water hits it might melt the snow causing it to shrink and fall apart before it actually has a chance to harden again due to the additional water. 

Mia decided she wanted to give this event a try and asked her dad if he would be willing to help her since she has never made a snowman before. “Can you start making the base of the snowman and make sure to roll the snowball around and it will get bigger and bigger  but make sure it keeps the round shape so it's more stable.” Mia starts out with a very small snowball and is pushing it around on the ground. She is fascinated with the process of the snowball getting bigger and bigger with every push through the snow. Above 10 minutes later she had a snowball that was bigger than her. Mia walked up to her Dad to show him the snow ball base she made. “That looks great kiddo! Can you make the second snowball that will go on top of that one while I work on making the arms, and hat?” Mia nodded and started to work on the 2nd snowball for the snowman. Mia lost track of time and worked on making the snowball bigger and bigger and then her Dad tapped on her shoulder.” Hey Kiddo, I think it's okay to stop now.” Mia looked over at her current snowball and realized it's a lot bigger than the first one and started to panic”Hey, its okay this is fine, we can just use this as the base no worries.” Mia stopped panicking and he was excited to see what we needed to do next. Gavin pushes the other snowball on top of the bigger one, and then starts to wrap it up in a scarf made out of leaves. Mia noticed that the scarf was made out of leaves that were intertwined with each other and their branches. Gavin then put a giant hat on top of the snowman that was huge. Mia moved over and looked at the giant hat and saw it was made out of straw and leaves. It looks really sturdy. Gavin handed her a few round stones.”Now, you get to make the face and we should be all good to go for this event.” Mia decided to make a smiley face on the snowman and was really excited to see how it would hold up in the event. 

The event was about to start and Mia looked over at all of the different snowmans that the teams made and was excited to see them all up close in person.” Everyone, this is the time to check out everyone else’s snowman and then come back to the start so we can begin the show.”said another elnin wearing a top hat. Mia walked over to team 1 and they had a 3 layer snowman, it had an umbrella that looks relatively flimsy. Mia walked over to team 2's snowman and saw it was 2 layers and it had a huge jacket made out of sticks and leaves. Mia walked over the third snowman and noticed it was 4 layers up and it looked like they added sticks and leaves to the actual body instead of adding an accessory. The last snowman is the one she made with her Dad and it looks pretty good. 

The judges started to walk down the line and thrown snowballs at each of them. Mia noticed that the 2nd team and the 3rd team’s snowman fell over. The judges went down and started to throw water balloons and the 1st team’s snowfall melted and fell over. Mia was so nervous when the judges went over and threw the water balls at her snowman but somehow, their snowman stayed up the whole time. The judges gave their team the little badge that shows they got 1st place in this event. Mia was getting really sleepy and fell asleep after this event. Gavin picked her up and placed her on his back and started to walk home. He decided to stop by a stall that had snowmen plushies and got her one and gave her that plushie. Mia hugged the plushie and stayed asleep until they got home.