Sunday Hike

        As mentioned earlier, Brian & Katy came to visit us this past weekend. Sunday was forecast to be the nicest of the three day weekend so we took advantage and hit the trail. We went up to part of the Flume Trail (a favorite of ours) armed with geocache coordinates and an entourage made up of Brian, Katy, Brett, and Adrienne (the "new" teacher and his wife). The hike follows an 1880 flume that went from Sheridan Lake to the town of Rockerville. Parts of the trail are still littered with old lumber that made the flume. It was cool but the sun was shining so we all enjoyed the hike and geocache. This was Lydia's first hike walking on her own. She's getting heavy in the backpack and she wants to be down running around. She was a little trooper and went nearly the whole way. She did get carried over a few rough spots and was tired at the end but since we went over three miles that's to be expected. When we got back to the trail head we picnicked and just enjoyed soaking up the sun.

1: Happy Hikers :)

2: Katy and Lydia resting along the trail.

3: Lydia getting tired at the end. How can I tell? The thumb is in and the hair is twirling.

4: The view to the east. Below Spring Creek can be seen and, with the recent rains, we could really hear it flowing. A breeze in the pines, a creek babbling, sun in the sky, and a trail ahead. This is the life.

wet spring

  This spring has seemed slow, cold, and wet. Tonight on the news the weather man verified our thoughts. We've had half of the yearly average precipitation in the month of May. (So, I'm not crazy.) Big picture: I hope that it helps the reservoirs fill up and relieves some of the multi-year drought. Small picture: I like the rainbow that the passing storm sent our way on Saturday afternoon. If you look close you can see it was actually a double rainbow with the second being slightly higher and much lighter. A temporary masterpiece to remind us who is in control.

new floors

    Over this Memorial Weekend my youngest brother Brian and his wife Katy came out to visit. We hiked, geocached, picnicked, garage saled, and Brian put new flooring down in our entryway and master bathroom. The 1970s era tile and laminate were covered with a delightful new brown flooring. YEAH!

Note: Those of you who haven't visited can now see our "sunset" bathroom. I was crazy enough to open five cans of paint and create this a few years ago. The pretty brown floor makes me want to paint some khaki walls with chocolate brown accents. Too bad the house is only ours till Friday.

last class

  On May 22 Nathan's last class of eighth graders graduated. It was also the last night I directed choir and the following day was the last day of school. Now we start the goodbyes. It could have been a sad or at least emotional evening but Lydia kept things light by choosing that evening to throw up for the first time ever (in the second pew during Pastor's sermon). Well, we will always remember the night one way or another.

Disc Golf Field Trip

        1: Roswell?? No, Jackson Park Disc Golf Course!

2: Ooops, the disc on the picnic pavilion.

3: Double oops, the disc in ice cold Rapid Creek.

4: Exhausted Lydia being carried by a kind-hearted 8th grader. :)

Budding Artist

  As I've been going through things before packing them I noticed the finger paint was nearly empty and not worth packing. When I gave Lydia the opportunity to spend some time finger painting she quickly got a paint apron and found her chair. Once the paint was poured on the paper and I reminded her how to paint with her hands she told me it was "messy" and asked for a brush. The girl who loves to play in dirt didn't want to be messy! LOL! She proceeded to spend the next half an hour painting swirls and streaks happily, with a brush.

ABC Cookies

  Since our spring has been pretty hit and miss here there are still many days it's nice to warm up the house with a little baking. Awhile back the kids got some alphabet cookie cutters that had only been used for for play doh. I was making some homemade rolls for sandwich supper when Hans suggested we bake cookies and Evan added that we should make ABC cookies. A project was born. We mixed dough and then let it chill during nap time (good timing). Later in the afternoon the counter was a floury delight of cookie dough. By the time Nathan got home from school we had hundreds of cookie and a few dozen rolls. Mmm, anyone want to come over and bake with us?

 

Begging

  For a few days last week a stray cat adopted our family. It followed the neighbor boy home from school and despite his best attempts to take it back to school or ask around, the home couldn't be found. As a result the stray just hung out where it got the most attention (in our backyard with the kids). This brought up great discussions about pets or in the case of the kids, lack of pets. After six day we finally told the kids we were going to take it to the humane society so maybe the owner could find it since it wouldn't leave our house. The day we planned to take it in the cat disappeared and we haven't seen it since. The kids are sure it found it's way back home and I hope it did. With us entering the world of renting it will be a few years until we can get a "real, fuzzy" pet but someday we will.

Compare

  When Nathan got home on the afternoon of Monday May 5th he took this picture just to compare. Three days earlier we had over 12 inches of snow and a full blown blizzard. This is definitely on the list of things to miss about SD, blizzard to beautiful in just days.

Afternoon at the Swim Center

  I wasn't really planning on taking the kids swimming for the church event since we had evening plans but our friend Jon was looking for some kids to play with at the pool. We picked up Jon and off the kids and I went.

Evan warmed up to the water first and, with a lot of trust in Jon, thought the frog was great fun.   Lydia thought the water was great and shortly after this picture I put her life jacket on because she would just keep walking even when the water was over her head.   Hans was the last to let Jon put him on the frog. Once he figured out he could touch the bottom of the pool he was more confident (As you can see in the fourth picture.)   And of course Jon had to have his turn on the frog. Hans may have helped him off. :) It was a fun afternoon that has the kids begging to go to the pool again.

Snow Swimming??

        Two days after our big snow the kids were outside like this! (We had a church swimming outing and they were so excited.) It wasn't quite warm enough to swim outside but it was in the mid 70s. My favorite of the four pictures is the last one when they realized it was a little to cold to be outside in swimmies. Maybe the hat and scarf will help. :)

Caution: Kids at Play

Here are some pictures of the kids playing in the snow Friday afternoon. If you want to see more try clicking the link below or go to Jenny's web album on the left side tool bar.      

The Big Snow of 2008

It seems like when weather men around here predict big snow storms we end up with a few flurries and nothing accumulates. Wednesday they started saying we were in for a spring blizzard Thursday and Friday. As we were leaving the Ascension service at 8:30pm Thursday night it was still warm and raining so we figured that once again the weathermen were overly optimistic.

It did start to snow a little about 11pm. About quarter to four Hans woke us up because the bathroom light was "broken." The power was out and one look out the window let us know that the weathermen weren't wrong after all.

Town was shut down all day so we just hung out here and made the most of it. I"d guess we had 12-15 inches of snow but I'm not sure what the official snow fall totals are since we had 40-50 mph winds with 60+mph gusts. The drifts were incredible! By 1pm the storm had blown through and the skies were clearing. Nate and the kids went out about 1:30 and the boys were out with him for over three hours playing, building forts (badger holes according to Hans), sledding, and shoveling. I warmed the house by simmering a big pot of chili, baking some french bread, and making caramel corn to snack on with the hot cocoa.

We've been out again today it's again beautiful. Right now the temperature is 60 degrees so water is dripping and running everywhere. It's supposed to be at least that warm all week so by Friday I'll probably need to mow the lawn.

Happy May to everyone. :)