Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

It is a beautiful trail.  And, It really is called the Beautiful Trail.  The trail follows a ridge top for more than a mile in the Coopers Gap area.  We hiked this last weekend when the weather was so nice. At the end of the trail, we reached a viewpoint overlooking Rothrock State Forest. As I've said before, Brady does not go on a hike.  He goes on a trail run! The rest of us hike. Eventually, Brady waits for us with a smile on his face.

On Monday we had some very unusual warm weather.  It is not very often that we get to celebrate our February birthdays outside.  The children had off school for Presidents Day, so we had to take advantage of the gorgeous weather.  Of course, it has been a while since we have been to our favorite spot-- Rocky Ridge.  This time, we took some friends along to show them our fun place. As usual, Brady ran up the ridge and immediately found boulders to climb.  Here's our birthday girl!  Can you believe she is five?  She was born on a Presidents Day, too.  If there is a little crevice, Brady finds it.  And then Amie thinks it is fun, too!  This group of kids gets along together really nicely.  They are so good together.  We were bummed that one other friend couldn't make it. This picture is a little blurry, but it shows our whole group. Supper was Amie's choice.  Of course, she chose potato soup...

 This year has not been a snowy weather year for us.  I think all of friends and family in Idaho and Washington are getting all of the snow this year!  The kids have been wanting to go skiing.  I think they were starting to get worried that we might not get to go this year.  After Thursday's nine inches of snow, I figured it might be our best chance to get onto the slopes this year.  Of course, there still wasn't much snow up there, but it was better than it has been. Here's an example of how this year has been.  When we left our house, it was 26 degrees. By the time we reached Claysburg, it was 52 degrees.  At the top of the mountain, it was 48 degrees by 9:15am!  Needless to say, we were skiing in some slush.  However, most of it held up decently throughout the day.  Slush is better than ice! These two had a morning of ski school. While Natalee and Brady were in ski school, Jesse and I hit the slopes together.  ...

We have had a few snow days in the last two weeks.  On one day, it was rapidly snowing 6 inches-- and we still went to school.  (I was glad of that)  The morning involved some decent sledding.  It warmed up significantly during the day.  By evening, the snow was extremely packable.  That made for great forts and snowmen. Last Thursday, we had 6-9 inches and school was cancelled even though the weather event was long over.  (Go figure!)  It was warm when it started, and then turned cold.  So, it clung beautifully to the trees all day.  Natalee would not cooperate for a picture for some reason.  But Amie is smiling nicely in the background.

Finding pictures like this melts my heart! Here's a funny conversation that I had with Natalee.  I was tired of the children arguing amongst themselves.  And, here is the conversation: Me:  "Do you all ever hear Dad and I arguing and yelling at each other like this?" Natalee:  "Yes" Me: (*?*!?) Natalee:  "Waffles" Me:  "What???" Natalee:  "Yes, you argue about whether waffles are for breakfast or dinner." Brady:  "I don't care when you have waffles.  I'll eat them anytime!"