Valentine's Day

This is not a holiday I care about. But any excuse for treats is good enough for me. I had one gingerbread house leftover from Christmas, knowing I'd save it for Valentine's Day. The candy is just too fun! I had such high hopes. I should have known better. Sigh.



These strawberry rice krispie treats, however, were delicious. I don't believe you can go wrong with rice krispies treats.

Hike 4: Patapsco State Park

The last time we were at this park was nearly seven years ago! INSANE! But I remember loving it so much. Of course, at that time, our boys were very little and not really in hiking condition. So given a holiday with decent weather, we trekked back up there to hike 5.7 miles. Not to spoil it, but the boys did it. The whole thing. This was the farthest they've ever hiked in one hike. I'm so so proud of them. Rhett never complained, except the one time he slipped and got super muddy. Ollie complained in the middle, but then realized how futile it was. But they were so so great. Ollie did not, however, break his record for number of pee stops. It was only six. Next time.

It had rained (of course it rained) the day before, so we were a bit afraid of mud, but for the most part, we lucked out! About ten days before we hiked, there was an ice storm. We think the heavy ice brought down many-a-tree because recently-downed trees were everywhere.


At our lunch stop, three old hikers teased (?) the boys. It was...weird?


Some old homestead.


As we approached the falls, there was a cool gazebo. Thankfully this was near the end because it's also where Rhett left his binoculars and where I had to run back to get them.


We finally made it to the waterfall. You can't see the girl in a BRIGHT orange dress getting pictures for her quinceanera.


Hey! We like each other!


This bridge! That boy! Those socks!


The hiking power beans for this trip are the HANDS DOWN best ones we eat. They may be the only ones we should eat. Get some.

83.1 miles to go!

Hike 3: Lake Frank

We did this in early February. It was another chilly day, upper 20s, but it was perfect! There were so many puddles that would have been so muddy, but instead, they were fun little frozen ponds. It was really cool. The creek was gorgeous all frozen. The boys did great! Well, except for one part where we went to a pond near where Chuck grew up. (His brothers used to fish in it!) It looked completely frozen and the boys REALLY wanted to walk on it, but we told them it wasn't a risk we were willing to take, even if other people obviously had. Three weeks later we read that our county police found a dead body THAT DAY right where we were. CREEPY.

The lake. So cool to see it so flat and white. All three boys enjoyed throwing logs onto it.


Pond walking.






88.8 miles to go!

5.7 Miles Down, 94.3 To Go

Even though we hadn't yet decided on our 2019 Hard Thing, we snowshoed on our first snow day of 2019 so I'm counting it as a 1.5-mile hike. And then on Monday, when the boys were off for a teacher workday, we did 4.2 more.

For this hike, I knew I'd need to get them excited about hiking in January. So I brought along sour watermelons and picked a hike in a place called "Rocks State Park." My boys LOVE rocks: love hiking on them and love throwing them. It was a bit of a drive, but we grabbed some books and they were (mostly) happy.

We did two hikes: one loop and one out-and-back to a waterfall. Winter hiking is cool because any mud is frozen solid! But I won't lie: it was cold (upper 20s). I was so grateful that I remembered hats and gloves for everyone. No way would we have lasted otherwise. I did not remember, however, my wallet. Whoops. We didn't see too many people on the trails, which was also nice because apparently the falls trail can get super crowded.

For some time, the loop hike was high above this cute creek.


There was so much moss everywhere. It was weird to have the bare trees but green on the floor.


Turns out there wasn't quite enough rocks for my boys, but they were mostly pleased.


The boys were super excited to find so many icicles near the waterfall. Rhett was less than thrilled when Ollie wanted to break them all off and eat them.


We had a great day and are excited to try many new-to-us trails this year.

Doing Hard Things

Our family has a pretty good life. We have a house. We have cars. We have two good-enough jobs. Heck, I wasn't even furloughed. My boys have two parents. We don't live with the constant worry of where money is coming from or whether there will be a dinner. (The worst my boys experience is whether they will like dinner.) We get to travel to cool places.

Sure, Rhett and Ollie would argue that they do have hard lives. Homework, chores, even having to deal with each other. But I'm smarter than that. It's still a pretty good life. We're lucky/blessed/hard workers/etc.

So I decided that we needed to work on something hard as a family. I came up with a few ideas, but the one we settled on was to hike 100 miles. So we're doing this. Today, Monday, we're going to a new-to-us state park. (It doesn't have camping, so I didn't even know of it.) Even though Chuck is at work, the boys (who are off today for end-of-the-semester) and I are going. We're going to eat hiking power beans and have a great time. I hope. And once we're done, we'll only have 95 miles left.

Pray for us.

New Year Interviews

Snow Day!

Before the weekend even started, we knew a storm was on its way, with predictions in the 3"-6" range. Saturday night (which gave us time to run and do stuff out of the house that day) the snow started falling and Sunday morning we woke up to about 6" and cancelled church. All day Sunday we had more light snow, but around 4:00 it started back up to accumulating snow. This meant a snow day for Monday as well. We ended up with around 10", the most we've had in three years. Here's how we spent the two days:

Sunday
Too early: wake up
Morning: sled (but not really because the snow wouldn't allow it), play at playground in the snow
Lunch: screens while I bake bread and cookies
Afternoon: build snow cave, snowshoe to a friend's house (carrying one "bread baby" in my jacket), see a snake on the snow and a cave made by bent bamboo
Evening: eat dinner while watching a movie and enjoying a fire

Monday
Too early: wake up
Morning: sled for real, even try snowboarding
Lunch: movie
Afternoon: back to the snow hill for more sledding, home for some screen time with a friend
Evening: eat dinner while watching a show and enjoying a fire

Notes on the two days: I'm tired. My shoulders and back hurt. Plus, I'm exhausted from having all of us in the house without leaving for more than 48 hours. We have three-day weekends for the next two weeks, but I imagine they'll be better just because we'll be able to get out. Also, even with all the work in the snow, my boys never once slept in. What is wrong with them?! Also, when I was about my boys' age, we got a snowstorm that cancelled SEVEN days of school. How did my mom survive?! Certainly my dad had to work (unlike my own husband), and she was home with four kids. I would die. BUT for our two days, I think I did okay. I (mostly) held it together, only losing it during a pancake fight and when Ollie wouldn't stop whining while snowshoeing. For the most part, however, they did great. Every year their endurance gets better and we had zero complaints about wet or cold. Amazing! Having decent gear makes such a difference. Oh, we love our two sleds. The boys really have such a fun time on them. Finally, we were all happy to have a two-hour delay Tuesday morning.

P.S. Here are the FIVE posts I did in 2016 about the snow! I had forgotten how traumatizing it was. Hahaha. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Lake Anna

I know myself well enough now to know that I get a severe case of cabin fever in the days after Christmas. Last year we lucked into the cute cabin in western Maryland, but this year I planned to go to Virginia. It was a drive that was longer than it should have been (curse you, Virginia traffic!), but at least it was pretty. We even drove by the cutest tree farm.

We got there Thursday afternoon in time to get in a hike. The weather was perfect and we had a great time. Friday it rained. Of course it rained; it's 2018 in D.C. We had planned to spend the day inside, watching movies and playing games. However, we forgot the laptop. (The cabin didn't have a TV so we were going to use our projector and laptop to watch stuff on the wall.) A quick trip to Walmart solved our problem and Friday was spent as planned. Saturday morning was gorgeous so we hiked a bit more before hitting the road home. Which, of course, gave us more traffic (curse you Virginia!). Oh, I forgot to mention that I pulled over by a super-bored, state-ist park policeman. Thankfully he let me off with a verbal warning. My little boys thought it was great.

Christmas Day

To be honest: December was hard. The boys fought a LOT and were super whiny. We ended up going to drastic measures and took away morning screen time (something they get because (1) they wake up early and (2) they get chores done) and sweets. I also cancelled the advent activities. This meant that as a family we'd only choose the activities that we had time for and really wanted to do. Sorry, red and green dinner. So even though Rhett will complain and say that I ruined all of our traditions, we still did plenty. Believe me.

Not pictured is the drive we took through a lights show. The boys complained that we went on a rainy night. To pacify them, I let them drive. It was hilarious. We also cut snowflakes, sang songs (well, they boys listened to me as I sang songs), drank lots of hot chocolate, and watched plenty of Christmas movies.

We made cookies. We ate cookies (until I banned them).


We made gifts and cards.


And then it was Christmas day! Santa brought this air hockey table. To my surprise, it's much quieter than the one my parents own. Thank goodness.


Ollie got this pig that he just doesn't like. Ha.


Opening more presents.


That evening was dinner with Chuck's brother's family 40 minutes north of us.

And even though it was after Christmas, we made it to Six Flags to see their lights.




Next year we'll go through the advent activities and choose those most important to us. We will not be dictated by a calendar or by whiny boys.

Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread Houses

One of our favorite traditions in December is to decorate gingerbread houses. The past two years we've invited our friend the Roberts to come join us. I make all the houses, something I love to do. Then we start the afternoon with lunch and then we finish with decorating. All of the kids are big enough to do it on their own. We had them some icing, a house, and then send them to the kids' table. It's lovely.



Just our houses.


Ollie's. I have no words.


Rhett's.


Right before the New Year's Eve destruction. I have no "after" shot because I went to bed.

Other November

In anticipation of how we'll spend the extra hour on Sunday, we took a hike to see how it'd go. It went great. The trailhead was only 15 minutes from the church, so we changed clothes in the car and headed out.








And then, of course, there was Thanksgiving. Here's our Thanksgiving Eve dinner. Sadly I have no pictures of the actual day. We enjoyed the company of two other families and had a good, looooong day.


On the day after Thanksgiving we tried another hike. The section of Billy Goat trail that my boys like was closed due to flooding, so we tried another trail. I love these two pictures showcasing a huge difference between my boys. Ollie is walking confidently while Rhett is slowly and carefully making his way.