State Capitol

Thursday I had to go to the capital city to get paperwork Phil needed ASAP. So I sprung Matthew, and drove on up. When we were done there was time on the meter, so I said, "Let's walk over to the statehouse." Matthew calls it "the round house." He's been intrigued for awhile now. On the walk up we saw a Lincoln memorial and Matthew got excited because he still remembered facts he'd learned President's Day week, "That guy got shot!"

Matthew on the statehouse steps. He looked so small up there!

As it turns out I looked pretty small too! *photo by Matthew

Inside, I'd forgotten how gracious the interior is. The old time grand and formal.

One of the stain glass windows. I love how patriotic they are. Matthew and I felt our adventure was well worth the trip.

"The chickens dye the eggs...

...I know because we read about it at school. Then the chickens give the eggs to the Easter Bunny to hide them. So why would we dye eggs?" Why indeed. So we didn't dye eggs. And the heavens poured forth hallelujahs Sunday, since Jesus was raised from the dead and the chickens had done their work.

Further proof the season is off

My early blooming iris is blooming in MARCH with my grape hyacinths, tulips, and late blooming daffodils. CRAZY! Plus all the iris up there already have bloom stalks up.



It was nice to catch so many of my flowers blooming. The first 2 I've never been able to live at my house to see bloom.

Saved

Something made my Dad go over to the trail to look for my camera yesterday. As he was surveying the embankment, thinking he couldn't make it to the top, a man he knows drove down the trail. He stopped picked something up and called down to my Dad, "I just found a camera!" What a God moment. 2 people in the right place to find and retrieve my camera. Because it was found, I can share with you what to do when hiking, it's 84 degrees in March, and you're hot.


You strip to you skivies and shoes, plunge into a clear puddle on the side of the trail, and make water angels. To be clear, my Dad now thinks we are nuts and I think I agree.

I also think the weather is nuts. Our lilacs are blooming...in March. Little early I'd say.


Mom went after my Dad to look for the camera, so thank you to both of my parents. And thank you to all the supportive comments.

Disaster

Yesterday, right at the beginning of a hike on a new section of trail, the unthinkable happened. As I was climbing up a steep embankment, the camera apparently got squeezed out of my pocket and has totally disappeared. Gone are the photos of spring flowers, gone are the photos we took on the 10th at Auntie's (last day I wasn't sick), gone are photos of Matthew "swimming" in a puddle, gone are probably alot of others too. We are going to go back and look more, but I feel naked. No camera. How will I live?

Rollercoaster ride

And for once I don't mean my life! I am talking about the weather. Last Tuesday we had huge storms roll through that produced a tornado after it got by us. But the high winds did damage, again, our big machine shed. Pushed a side in and damaged 3 doors.


The next day it was 70 degrees. Friday morning we woke up to it snowing up a storm. Colder temps and high winds the next couple days. Tuesday it was 68 degrees and I wore capris, which is big for me. (I'm always cold.) Our first daffodils also opened that day!

Then a warm and cold front collided over us Wednesday afternoon. Last night I woke up to 1/2" hail, rain, thunder, and lots of wind. Then in the really wee hours, it changed to sleet and snow.

So this morning the poor little daffodils were a bit battered and sitting in snow. Awwww, gotta love spring weather!

Animals or their parts

Our old dog, that we thought we were going to lose, Simba, has really recovered! He hasn't been able to journey the trail for about a year, but is now well enough to do so. In getting there he got the muddiest feet! (The vet said his teeth were bad, but the reason he was so skinny was very old age. Well, we decided to do dental surgery anyway and lo and behold, he had all but 6 teeth pulled and had a raging infection. The "if you want to" surgery was actually a "necessary for life" surgery. He has packed back on the weight, has pep in his step, and is back to being the master of his domain.)

Probably a coyote skeleton right in the middle of the trail.

Turkey track. We'd never seen one before.

Owl on a sign coming home one night. He didn't like my flash and flew off after I got this shot.

Unusual track on the trail. I'm sure the animal is very common.

I thought I found egg halves until we looked closer. A tiny animal skull and pelvis. It was so fringy and delicate.

Interesting texture on the inside.

Geese have been feasting on fields, in large numbers, for about 3 weeks.

A herd of turkeys apparently wanders our trail too!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

It started with an invitation to read.

And Matthew and I accepted the challenge. The lady on the left is the other second grade teacher. Matthew loves her. I'm not surprised, she was my second grade teacher and I loved her too. (In fact I still do.) She sponsors the event. The other lady is our principal. I'm VERY sad to say both are retiring this year.

He may have lost sleep, but he loved every minute of it. Getting ready for it and some cupcakes got my creative juices flowing, so since the next day was Matthew's snack day AND Dr. Seuss's birthday, I decided I HAD to make a Seuss themed snack, especially since that was this weeks theme at preschool too.

Voila! Cat in the Hat hats! I did not use a tutorial, nor have I seen these on the net (probably because I've never looked), but I'm sure someone has come up with them before me. Or something similar. But this was a fly by the seat of my pants snack that I made up at the absolute last minute, in the grocery store. The frosting would have piped better if I'd had my real piping set and not a sandwich bag I'd cut the tip of a corner off of, but hey, they were good enough.

And yummy. At least that's what he says his friends told him to tell me.

Where in the world do I begin?

In the last 10 days I've amassed 140 photos, and there is alot of them that I think are humdingers and share worthy. So stay tuned as I try and post them in logical manners. Tonight's selection, I've decided, will focus on the Bug. Get ready, they are coming!

While we wait for them to load, let's talk for a moment about where I've been. Well I'll tell you, in January, I got what I believe was a sinus infection which caused mass amounts of mucus coming out and down the back of my throat. That lead to me losing my voice by the end of the day and coughing alot trying to get the mucus out of my throat. After fighting it for at least 2 weeks, my husband bullied me into going to the doctor and she ruled it an upper respiratory infection. I was ordered to 2 days of bed rest. I made it one, and only because I threw up after I got home, I coughed so much. All of this caused me to be very tired and melancholy. I really didn't want to talk to anyone or do anything but sleep. Then I discovered that my pants no longer fit so well due to increased waist measurements. So February has been watching what I eat, crunches, and a new gym membership and our storage unit being broken into. (We think all the took was the propane tank for the grill. They left the grill.) It has also brought better health and spirits, along with a busier schedule and an early bedtime for Matthew. Dad and I finally realized that Matthew was exhausted and needed more sleep! That's equaled less computer opportunities and a happier kid. Hopefully, I will make more time to blog as I miss it. I'm sure Phil misses photos of his family too.

Fallen tree in our woods. The last 2 weeks we've spent alot of time outside exploring. I'm so thankful we have the space to explore.

Low water bridge crossing by our house.

We've become pickers! While on the trail we noticed a little dump site and it had this adorable table in it. Yeah, we "picked" it.

Last weekend Matthew was invited to an ice skating birthday party. Pretty cool stuff!

But he just can't stay up on skates!


Eating pizza.

And birthday cupcakes. The 2 girls on his left he's gone to school with his whole life and counts as best friends. The 2 boys on his right he's gone to school with just this year and are his best boy friends.

Momma kisses are the best. This one he insisted he wear to school.

While on a new section of the trail, Mamaw found the perfect grapevine to swing on.

Lucky for him, his didn't break like the one she selected for me when I was a kid. My granddad and his brother used to swing on them all the time.

Comfy with the picked table today. It was so warm and nice, we didn't need coats. Dad and I watched him play outside the better part of the afternoon.

While I was at the gym tonight, Matthew drew this awesome picture. He is so creative when he wants to be.

And here is a rare photo of him with me taken yesterday on the trail. *photo by Mamaw


Coming soon: nature shots, things found growing on or attached to trees, and animals or their parts.

Welcome Winter!

Matthew was super excited when he got up this morning and discovered SNOW! Like enough snow to PLAY in. It truly was miraculous to him.


Here Matthew is wearing his new snowpants and snowboots. Finally the morning has come to put them to good use.

Finally the child sized snow shovel my Grandmom gave me around his age, was broken out and put to good use.



If only it had been a snow day...