Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

 This is the first time that we have been home after Christmas for a few years.  We made use of one of my Christmas presents (a new Purple Lizard Map of Rothrock State Forest).  This map is much more detailed than my circa 2003 Purple Lizard Map.  We decided stay local and check out the Little Juniata Trail that follows the Little Juniata River between Barree and Spruce Creek.     The trail is on the sunny side of the gap and lower in elevation.  So, most of the snow had melted.   The train runs through this mountain gap.  One train came through during our walk. This area is very well known for fishing along the Little Juniata River and nearby Spruce Creek.  We did pass two dedicated fishers. 35 is cold for fishing if you ask me! Of course, all trips to a river involve throwing and skipping rocks! Here, they drop in an "iceberg" to watch it float down the river: Afterward, we "tortured" everyone by going for a drive in the state forest....

 Here is the 2020 style igloo.  The children started to build an igloo after the snow softened slightly and was packable.  They used their round molds to make the bricks.  When they were building it, Natalee commented that the igloo was fitting for 2020 -- the bricks look like rolls of toilet paper! Unfortunately they ran out of daylight and time.  The children all had to leave for the Christmas play practice.  They never finished it that night and it caved in the next day. They built a big snowman, too:

 Today, we were invited to sled at our piano teacher's house.  Her house is on a giant, nearly unobstructed hill.  Of course, she spoiled us with hot cocoa, too.   Jesse and I went down together, too.

 We received more than a foot of snow on Wednesday afternoon and evening.  After many hours of shoveling and blowing snow, we got to enjoy the fluffy white stuff.  It really was a welcome reprieve from schooling and working at home (for 4/5 of us) and all of the pandemic things that we have to deal with.  We eagerly anticipated the snowstorms approach. As I went to bed the night before, I realized that Natalee did not have any snow boots whatsoever.  And, she is TWO sizes bigger than my average sized feet.  So, I went shopping before daylight for her boots. Unfortunately, since school is virtual today, we did not get the fun, highly anticipated snow day.  They still had school, although most teachers shortened their loads so that they could go outside.  We were out before school and after school.  Everyone was very tired after a day of shoveling and playing in snow.

 I found some really cute bell ringers at Walmart last week.

 The girls made some cinnamon ornaments.  Amie has a really hard time touching some things like dough, dirt, worms, bugs, etc.  She has always been this way since she was little.  I'm not sure how someone in our family ends up skittish about touching things!  I didn't think about that fact until we were at the point that she had to touch the dough to mix it up. They turned out really pretty and smell nice.

 Sunday, we took a short hike through the nearby game lands to the cliffs.  The leaves were past their prime, but they were still pretty. It's a really easy hike.... ....but, the rewards are great. The view looking toward Petersburg One thing that we noticed was that there were a lot of bright red oak leaves on the top of the cliffs, but the leaves down by the Juniata River were only yellows and golds. A few of us explored down the steep trail to the bottom of the first cliff that we came to. Amie and Jesse stayed up on top of the rock, and Amie made her "soup". This is a popular rock climbing area   We continued to walk down the cliffs on the trail.  Here is the view from another cliff top.  This time, the Juniata River was slightly visible and Huntingdon is off in the distance.

Natalee has been enjoying playing on the junior high girls soccer team.  Thankfully the PIAA went against the governor's "firm recommendation" to cancel fall sports.  The governor really put on the pressure. The season was delayed by two weeks while trying to decide what to do.  It's a really enjoyable group of girls to be around.  A grandmother from the soccer team takes a lot of pictures and very nicely shares them with us. Since we are involved with an small outdoor team, we have been able to watch all of her games that we could go to.  We even attended a couple of away games.    A friend covers games in Tyrone for the newspaper.  He took these pictures for us. Natalee has been playing midfielder.

Amie has been enjoying soccer this year.  I think she has felt more successful.  She's definitely been more aggressive. I love how every single picture has a tongue sticking out! Amie was excited because she scored 2 goals during this game.

 We "attempted" to plan an easy backpacking trip on section 1 of the Standing Stone Trail through Buchanan State Forest.  We refer to this as "forced family fun. We used two vehicles so that we would not have to backtrack this 10 mile section.  We attempted to make it easy by hiking up an approximate 1/2 mile section of the Sharpe Trail to set down our tents along the Standing Stone Trail.  Then, the plan was to leave our stuff here, which was half way through the 10 mile section hike. Then, return to the car and hike to the tents. Here is what we hiked up to get to our camping spot: The Sharpe Trail   The picture doesn't really do the steepness justice.  It was extremely steep. I'm guessing that this was actually a 1/2 mile log chute that was transformed into a trail.  With all of the falling leaves and steepness, we decided that we could not hike our backpacks back down this trail the following day.  Our "easy" backpacking trip was suddenly not ...