Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

Today was the first day of school. *insert sigh* Natalee started 2nd grade and Brady started 1st grade.  And, a piece of my heart went to school with them today.  My stomach was in knots a lot of the day.  Not worry.  I was just missing them terribly.  I thought that this year would be better since I didn't send anyone off to Kindergarten.  Not so much! Second grade started off well.  She said her teacher was nice. I think 1st grade went well.  He has Natalee's teacher from last year and he has several friends in his class. Amie and I were dreading them going to school.  She was really missing them. Amie took this picture. This picture is from a few weeks ago.  Amie is missing all of the creativity and fun play they provided her all day long.

Today, for Jesse's birthday, we tried out the newest section of the Broad Top Rail Trail.  It just opened this past spring. We hadn't ever been on any of this trail before.  But, we chose this section of the trail because we like bridges.  Bridges and water make a trail interesting. My lovely biking buddy, Amie. There was a good variety of sights on this trail.  We started in a channeled out hillside, crossed the river on a bridge, biked by corn fields, and biked through forest. On our way back, we stopped for lunch at this very buggy bench.  Actually, I quickly biked back to the car and brought the cooler back to the bench.  The funny thing was that there was an old lady sitting on the porch of a very run down looking house right beside the parking area.  She sat so still that I was convinced she was a cardboard cut out.  I thought to myself, "Was that cardboard person here when we left?" I looked at her multiple times because I did think...

When Jesse and Brady got back to Ohiopyle, they met up with us and we went mini golfing.  It was a course with really neat ideas for obstacles- but was difficult because some of those obstacles weren't of the best design or the best condition.  It was also mid afternoon, so we were all hot. Amie didn't golf too much.  She was hot and tired.  Plus, she could only think of ice cream. After mini golf, we did go cool down with some ice cream, which pleased the kids greatly, especially Amie. She received a really large "one scoop" ice cream cone.  And, she ate the entire thing!  After ice cream, we took Jesse and Brady on the section of rail trail.  We wanted to show them both of the large bridges over the Youghiogheny river on the Allegheny Passage Trail.  On the one river you could see whitewater rafters going through the rapids. When we got back to our camping loop, we were the only ones left!!  Everyone else had gone h...

At the last minute, we decided to go camping at Ohiopyle.  My bike ride was cancelled and we were already traveling southeast to go to swim championships.  So, we decided to drive further into Ohiopyle State Park. Our first evening in Ohiopyle, we went swimming in the Youghiogheny River.  The kids were excited because they found pennies and other treasures in the water.  If I had bigger kids, I think it would've been fun to ride the currents down the river a little.  We discovered it is VERY busy in Ohiopyle during the weekend.  Ohiopyle is a small, narrow place, so driving and parking can be difficult on the weekend.  Our campground was filled to capacity, too. After swimming, we walked a short ways to see Youghiogheny Falls.  We also stopped and saw Meadow Run natural water slide.  Of course, the kids couldn't do that yet. On our first afternoon in Ohiopyle we saw the overflowing parking lot for Cucumber Falls. In the morning, ...