Us Four... No More: March 2009

Tuesday, March 31

Change Of Plans

Some of our best days come from ditching the "plan" and just doing something spontaneous. (If you know me at all you know this is not usually how I like to roll... it takes effort for me to be spontaneous!!) My plan today was grocery shopping, but my friend Jocelyn called while we were getting ready to go and invited us to come play outside in their backyard. I threw together a short version of my "must-haves" at the store and we made a new plan. And I'm so glad we did!

Lots of hiking and climbing and chatting and exploring and sunshine.... and dogs...

Chloe and Evan both rode a 4-wheeler for the first time today. Good times.

Jocelyn's two girls are 11 and 9 (I think) and they just love little ones, so Chloe was in trustworthy and loving hands all day long! Chloe told me at home later "My friends kept me safe." Such sweetness in this little threesome.

... and such rugged wonderful-ness in this duo :-) Jed is about a year older than Evan. The last time they really hung out was Halloween day at the pumpkin farm -- they really like each other a lot!

This ravine was calling Evan's name from the mention of going to Miss Jocelyn's this morning. It's steeper than it looks in the photo! Brave kids, I tell ya! And there's a lot of glorious mud at the bottom. Next time we are bringing the mud boots instead of the junky play shoes.

Sweet Ysabet and Chloe "digging" in the yard. Making mudballs and just having girl time, ya know? They sat here together for almost twenty minutes. Chloe was sooo sooo sleepy and she just loves her caring friend :-)

Coolest "swingset" ever. A board across two trees with super duper long chains.

I don't have a picture to go with this story but it bears telling anyway. The boys were getting out a ladder to climb into the treehouse as I was packing up to leave. There just wasn't enough time left for them to do what they had planned... and there was quite a plan... such sad boys... there were quite a few tears and sniffles over this missed adventure so we will be going back soon to pick up right where we left off :-)

One plan that never changes is our plan to move out of the city and into the beauty of nature... sooooooon.

Posted by Bree

I miss you Liz (and I wasn't cheating on you!)

Monday, March 30

Weekend Outside

*** Long post... including a bazzillion pictures ***

We loaded up the rock-crawler and Chloe's toy stroller on Friday to take their "kittens" for a ride around the block

(Chloe's are in the basket underneath... they're safer there.)

They had a little off-roading adventure over mud piles, gravel pits,tree roots and huge rocks... all this found on the city sidewalks ;-) Spring clean-up anyone?

Stopped to spy some new crocuses growing...

... then roll down their favorite hill.

We took a walking break to just lay down on the warm grass and look at clouds for a bit (Chloe invited me: "Mom, will you ray wiff me and rook at the crouds??") The sun felt so wonderful...

Then we sat very quietly and watched birds hop and hunt for worms and listened to them sing -- our neighborhood seemed peaceful for that fifteen minutes. It was very nice!

Chloe found an ant and just layed right down on the sidewalk to watch it. Evan and I joined her and we ended up digging under old crusty leaf piles to try to find more bugs. We completely lost track of time and after about a half hour, got on our way again with walking.

Back home after an hour and a half "walk" around our block... we were hungry. Evan thought it was a perfect day to eat outside.

He was right. Everybody smile with food in your mouth....

It was one of those days where putting Chloe down for a nap just didn't seem right, so we went to Frontier Park instead :-)

After a few trips down the slides, it was off to the trails to explore and do some real climbing.

Evan climbed every cliff he could find. His shoe fell off in a swampy patch at the bottom of one. He thought that was pretty funny. Chloe actually did these hills too, but since she was with Todd most of the time she's not in any of my climbing pictures.

There is a creek through the park that the kids are always fascinated by.

Evan threw about 50 rocks into the creek...

...while Chloe dug in the sand.

On our way out, Evan grabbed up a stick and found this "lovely relaxing place" to go fishing. ??? He was pretty upset that he put his stick in "four times and couldn't even catch a minnow."

He decided the stick was a keeper anyway.

We were all so tired after being outside for five straight hours. Ahhhh, spring.

Saturday was another day of nice weather. The rock patch in the back yard is where Evan hangs out.

Chloe is his driving buddy now.

We didn't even make it all the way around the block. She kept stopping to lay on her truck. I wish I had gotten a picture of it. She hadn't napped in days.

We had a visit with Gramma in the afternoon, and then Sunday was filled with church and a family gathering at my mom's. I'm so glad we at least got to breathe so many hours of fresh spring air before the snow came again (last night).