Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

Stella gave us several days of snow fun before melting off.  The sledding hill became really good on day #3.  The children had school delays, so we enjoyed the sledding both before and after school. I adore these three 💗 I told the girls to give Brady a kiss on the cheek :) They built a little bump to fly over. Jesse got in on the fun after work.  Brady kept sledding sideways.... and crashing.

Brady's birthday was good and bad. The additional snow day was fun.  However, Brady wanted to go to school.  Brady picked hamburgers, salad, and cherry cheesecake for his birthday dinner.  Because of the drifting, blowing snow, family members were not able to venture to our house for his birthday dinner, either.  We could not grill burgers in the cold, blowing snow.  And because the family members could not make it, the grill alternative did not come and neither did the salad or the cherries for the cheesecake.  He had to settle for pizza at home with strawberry cheesecake. After a day at home of chilly sledding, he FINALLY got to open some presents.  However, because Stella interupted mail service in some locations, he did not recieve cards and packages on his birthday that he was expecting. About 4 years ago, Amie had a habit of trying to steal Brady's dog, Wrinkles .  Wrinkles was Brady's much beloved animal that he slept with.  Brad...

 We ended up getting a good amount of snow out of Stella.  Snow day! But, the world did not end as the weather folks make you feel.  We did have a lot of  fun in the snow.  After a full day of shoveling snow caves and sledding, some children were getting tired.... .....and quite grumpy. And then the cold winds came.  Snow blew everywhere.  It wasn't as bad here as it was in Big Valley, though.  Area roads drifted shut because snow plows could not keep up.  We are a little more protected by our ridges by our house.

Sunday was a beautiful crisp late winter day.  Since it was chilly, we were hoping that the Thousand Steps would not be quite as busy.  There were still plenty of people there, but it was still fun. We invited our friend Roy and his mom, Erin, along. Amie at step #1000.  Amie is not exactly a slow hiker.  But, the rest of the kids were way ahead of us by this point. At the top of the steps, we walked around the mountain to see the views.  All of the children worked really hard to dig up an old railroad spike.  They were quite diligent in their digging and prying.  At nearly the moment they had the spike loose, I found a spike on top of the ground a few feet away.  They didn't need to work so hard after all! After exploring the old building, we continued up the Standing Stone Trail a little ways.  Past the steps, the topography changed quite a bit.  It was pretty. We would like to return and explore even further...