Spring-ing-ing

Ah, it smells like spring today! It's been raining intermittently since sometime during the night which might develop into thunderstorms later this afternoon but it's in the mid 50s with a warm breeze. Our yard is greener every day, trees are budding, tulips are popping up everywhere, worms are squiggling on the sidewalks, and the air just smells fresh. Ah, spring. Hopefully your change of seasons is equally refreshing. :)

Camera Coming

Last night Nathan ordered a new camera for us. It'll be here before Easter so pictures will return. This is the longest I've gone without taking pictures since we got a digital camera. We're looking forward to a quick trip home for Easter weekend. We'll actually be making quite a few trips in the next five months. We're looking at being back for Easter, Michael's graduation weekend, over a week in June, under a week in July, and then to the Tetons in August. How quickly summer will go by us. Let us know if you want to come visit us; right now we have no one on our reservations calendar. Love to you all. :)

Pictureless Posts

Hello family and friends,

It's been awhile since I posted without pictures but that is my only option right now. Last Monday when I was taking the pictures of the kids splashing in the pool I left the camera in the middle of the picnic table and went inside to answer the phone. When I peeked back out about five minutes later Lydia was walking around holding the camera by the string with it turned on and the lens completely zoomed out at a rather precarious angle. Suffice to say the camera is no longer in working condition. Ugh.

We've still be having a delightful taste of spring with or without pictures. The tulips are all popping up, we have a few robins around, the boys were watching sparrows gather twigs for a nest in the birdhouse on the patio, and we had one entire day of rain last week. I know that last one might not mean anything to you in MN/WI but it is never rainy here for more than and hour or two so an entire gloomy day puts both Nathan and I in a surprisingly good mood. Call it reverse seasonal depression.

Today we took good friends of ours, the Maertzes, on a geocache on the Flume Trail. Many of you have been on the Flume Trail during one visit or another in the past few years. It follows an old flume bed that was used to transport logs from the Hills to a mill. The entire trail is 13ish miles and we did about a four mile loop today. What is most impressive about that is that Hans is now hoofing it as he's getting to heavy to pack. That's a BIG hike for a little guy. By the end he was hungry and tired so he bummed a few brief carries but did great. We've got to keep in shape as we look forward to a summer of caches and some time in the mountains for vacation.

That's about all that's new here. The kids are doing great, Nathan has 45 days of school left, and I'm enjoying a weekly pottery class right now. Drop us a note, give us a call, or just pop in anytime. See you soon. :)

Practicing for Summer

The thermometer said 84.6 degrees so I figured I had no good reason to say no when the kids asked. Here is what we did just before lunch today. Hopefully you are enjoying the first tastes of spring/summer just as much. :)

Boulder Hill Cache

This past weekend my parents came out for a visit. They couldn't have picked a better weekend. The weather was fabulous for outdoor activity. Since Nathan got a GPS for Christmas his new favorite outdoor activity is geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing). For those of you who haven't ever heard of it you can check out geocache.com. Basically you choose a cache off of a list in your area, plug coordinates into your GPS, and follow the arrow until you reach the exact location. Then you begin searching for the cache or as the boys call it, the treasure box. You then record your visit in the log and can trade cache (little trinkets). This weekend the boys traded some of their matchbox cars and accessories for marbles, a toy lion, and a toy seal. When finished you hide the cache again so the next hunter can find it. We were able to get in four different caches with Mom and Dad. Three were Saturday in town at a large city park. The fourth was about 20 minutes into the Hills on the top of Boulder Hill. It is a lot of fun and I'm sure we'll be doing it for years to come.

The pictures are:

1. The kids on top of Boulder Hill. Evan hikes all the time now, Hans is about 1/2 hiking and 1/2 in the backpack on Dad, Lydia is still on my back in the pack.

2. My Dad on the ledge finding the cache.

3. The kids eagerly searching for their treasures.

and the snow

Previously I'd mentioned that there had been snow on Sunday's hike. Here is the proof. Our feet were cold, cold, cold and pretty wet when we were finished. Somehow this didn't diminish our enjoyment of the day though. :)

Little Devil's Tower ala Smith

Here is the summit we hiked up to on Sunday afternoon. The first picture is looking west over the beautiful Black Hills. Second we have rock formations known as the Cathedral Spires. Third we have the hikers-Joanna, Denise, Jenny, and Kelly.

This was the first time I'd ever done this hike but I think it'll be added to the list of favorites so if you are headed this way during hiking season consider yourself forewarned.

Now you understand one more reason why we love it here. Breathtaking. :)

Gentle Bombardment

After devotion, before bed the kids are read to for little bit each night. Lydia had escaped from the picture but the boys were loving it. And what their Dad loves is that they were reading Sam the Minuteman which is a Revolutionary War book. He's already working on getting them hooked on history. Hope you are just as cosy! :)

Joanna

Joanna arrived here just before bedtime on February 23 and just departed this morning about 9:15am.

Her official reason for being here was EFE (early field experience-required my MLC of education majors). She spent her days this past week in Nathan's classroom watching, helping, correcting, and a little actual teaching. She did have the thrill of getting to sub for our 5-6 grade teacher for a few hours Friday morning.

Her evenings have been spent being bombarded by three tornadoes. She has been, as Nathan said, "an extra Mom to our kids this week." She even babysat the kids overnight as Nathan and I escaped to a little hideaway in the Hills for the night Friday.

She also got to experience our Pre-k to 4th grade play night last weekend along with the Chili/Hotdog Supper, our Lenten service, eating out for supper twice with our whole family, Junior Choir singing for Life Sunday, a movie at the Elks Theatre, and a whole lot more.

She had originally planned to leave after church yesterday but with the skies clear and the temps reaching 60 or so she decided to take up an invitation to hike Little Devil's Tower with the Smiths, not us the Smiths but another family from church who had taken a shining to Joanna and happen to share our last name. About 1:00 Joanna, Denise, Kelly, and I all hit the trail. Ah, glorious hiking. I'll have to post pictures of that later since 60s in Rapid does not mean 60s in the Hills.

Overall it was a wonderful 10 days ending with Nathan finding more reasons to be increasingly proud of his littlest sister, with our children becoming very enamoured with their Aunt Joanna, and me becoming closer to my youngest sister-in-law. We are too blessed. :)