Snow much fun

Well this is a week late but we had our first (and possible only)snow last Sunday. Erin noticed it about 10 AM and just begged for the next two hours to go outside. She stood by the window and shouted "Look it's snowing" about every 5 minutes. We convinced her to wait about 2 hours until there was at least a little snow on the ground to play in.

So a little after noon we got all bundled up. We still don't have snow pants for the kids so we threw on PJ pants and 2 pair of socks under some sweat pants for the kiddos. It was a nice fluffy snow and not too wet.

Jeffrey had never played in the snow before so he wasn't sure what to expect. He was a little tentative for about 2.5 seconds and then barreled right into it. He started out at the little swing and slide and had a blast there. Then Erin thought she needed to clear off the cars so she lured him over to the hill. Once he got over there he was lost forever. He spent the next 15 minutes running/rolling down the hill. The biggest issue was that he couldn't get back up very well so someone had to go down the hill and get him back.

Erin was a little less interested in getting down and dirty with the snow. She really wanted to clear the snow off the cars. She tried to make some snowballs but the snow was too dry and just floated away. Right before she came inside Tom showed Erin how to make a snow angel. She thought it was very very cool.

Sadly early in the evening we got some freezing rain. Not enough to make the snow melt, but enough to make the snow icey and crusty on top. I had to spend 10 minutes the next morning explaining to Erin why she couldn't go back out and play. She was simply heartbroken. But she finally relented. Sadly by Thursday the snow was pretty much gone :( Maybe we'll get some more before the winter is truly gone.

A Family in the Woods

Well we decided to take advantage of the unusually warm January weather and take the kids out geocaching and for a picnic yesterday. We decided to head over the mountain to find a few caches we hadn't yet picked up. (For those of you who don't know what geocaching is we describe it as, "using multi-million dollar government satellites to find Tupperware hidden in the woods." Check out http://www.geocaching.com/ for more information.) Tom packed up a picnic lunch for us to stop at a picnic area on Skyline Drive on the way back. Erin was totally enthused about the idea of a picnic. She's been playing picnic with her guys and little pets recently so all she could talk about was "time for the picnic yet?"

Our GPS sent us a little screwey in the beginning but once we got it set back on track we headed off to the first cache. This one was in a little park in a small town of Shenandoah (on the way to Luray Caverns from here). It stood on the site of an historic furnace. There was a little pond, picnic tables and a walking path. The kids were excited to see some ducks in the pond. Jeffrey and Tom walked down towards it for a closer look. As usual Jeffrey was wiggling to get away. Tom restrained him well though, until he fell for the old, "OK Daddy I give up" trick. At that point Jeffrey bolted immediately into the pond. Tom caught him by the back of his shirt (appropriately his "Little Wild Man" shirt) before he fell face first. Still he was soaked from his thighs down. Mind you we had left the diaper bag by the front door and this was the first stop. He didn't seem bothered by it so we just kept on. Found the first cache without any trouble and moved along to the next one which was very nearby at an old general store.

After nabbing that one, we decided to skip the one we had printed out that required the mile long hike up the mountain and do another that was marked as relatively simple. It took us to a really cool Civil War Furnace site in the George Washington National Forest. The furnace was huge...about 30 feet tall. Right next to a confluence of 2 smaller streams into one slightly larger one. The setting was beautiful. Given Jeffrey's recent expedition into the pond he was confined to the backpack as soon as we got out of the car. We let Erin go explore around the stream though. I even got her to sit so I could take some pictures in front of the stream. We headed off on a walk to find the rest of the cache. Since it was pretty cloudy the GPS was jumping all over the place. We're pretty sure we were in the right place for the actual cache, just couldn't get right on it. With it beginning to get into the afternoon and Erin still focused on the picnic we abandoned that effort and headed back up into the mountains for lunch.

There must have been a strong wind storm since the last time we were up here as many many trees were bent or broken. The picnic area we had planned on eating at was closed to cars. We decided to park in a little area out front and walk in anyway. There were trees down all over the place, but the tables were still standing and there was enough room for the kids to run around. We had a Frisbee and ball with us too. Both kids immediately started eating, but it didn't last long as they wanted to explore the area. They peeked around trees and kicked the ball around. They even decided to play some hide-and-seek (still one of Erin's favorite games). Erin loved hiding behind the different trees - no matter how small they were. Jeffrey doesn't quite have the hang of it yet though. So if you aren't sure where the hider is...just follow Jeffrey who is generally loudly trying to hide alongside. So we all finished with lunch, climbed around on the fallen trees with daddy and just had a "great outdoors" day. All in all it was a blast.

By the time we drove the 6 miles back down the mountain Jeffrey was fast asleep and Erin wasn't far behind. What a perfect way to wear the kids out and have a great family day together.