Second Winter

Last Sunday after hockey, we decided to check out a new hiking trail behind the Shutterfly building in town. Mike has wanted to explore it for weeks - and it felt like the right day. Until we got outside and realized it was cold. And windy. Nonetheless, we bundled up and explored. Weather has not often been known to stop us!

We did a loop that was just over a mile ... plus a bit of off-roading through the swamp. We should have gotten much wetter wandering through the swamp than we did. It was painfully clear that that the lack of snow this winter is going to create quite a spring drought. Hopefully it will be a wet spring or the lakes are going to be low this year!

Everyone's favorite part of the walk was the big fallen tree trunk that the kids spotted. Q and D wanted to climb it - so Mike went first to determine safety. He deemed it trustworthy so three more Vannestes shimmied up. I contributed by taking a picture. And then helping everyone down. Turns out, down was much trickier than up.

Part of the strategy behind the walk was to wear people out enough to go to sleep. While we tend to Spring Forward better than we Fall Back, either version of daylight savings time tends to throw things off kilter for a few days. [Fun fact: the wheels came off hard on Tuesday. But by Wednesday, we seemed to be pulling it back together.]

No one wanted to get up on Monday morning, which made it even more exciting when - 10 minutes before the bus arrived - Mike looked at the weather forecast and realized that we were supposed to get 5-8 inches of snow that day. Ummm, what?!?! There was a quick sprint to pull the boots back out of the closet (as predicted) so they had them for recess. It was a pretty snow during the day, although I don't think we got more than 3-4 inches. It never even really stuck to the road. 

It's already melted and I'm planning to return the boots to the closet again tomorrow. Although probably not for the last time this season.