back before the snow came... and now

There's not much to do when it's below 20 degrees F outside and the snow hasn't decided to come yet. ("Fortunately" that has remedied itself as of late.)

Back in late November I took the girls out a few times to the Rum River (trivia for you - the "Rum" really was an incorrect translation from the Native American word "Spirit"... that's supposed to be Spirit like Ghost, not spirit like alcohol... 150 years later, we have an alcoholic river, not a otherworldly river... fitting it runs behind the alcohol treatment centers I guess... hmm, anyway...). They loved visiting it so much, J took them once also, and I took them a while later. Since it pretty much looks the same all the time, I took pics only once, but gave the point&shoot to J when he went, also.

Here's my visit:

We don't usually drive, since the park's only about a mile away, but we'd rather take that walking time as playing time, and then get in the car when they're frozen rather than having to walk home again.
We go down the sloped banks to the river - in the peak flow, the water is just under that fishing deck there. Usually the water covers this bank G's standing along; do you like her sling? Some days she gets these things into her head - that day she had to carry little "brown baby" around with her, so there's a small doll in that sling which she insisted on wearing over her coat, even while buckled into the car.

K says to me a few days after this, "Is ice cracking a sport? I think so."

That's what she calls this: "ice cracking," and it's what she'd ask to go do with us. Her iota of Scandinavian blood certainly dominates the Italian genes - she keeps warm way longer than any of the rest of us. (Stinkin' Italian that make me want to curl up in a ball under the covers and dream of warm sunny beaches whenever the temps drop... Yeah, 100% Dutch J doesn't have that dream much, unfortunantly!)

A few days later J took a great pic of the girls on the walk he took with them... that's river debris K's carrying around (the last time we went, I brought a bucket and we found lots of cool trash - more on that later, perhaps...)


~
Now, there's more to play with in their own yard, which is great. First snows are awesome, and it only gets deeper from here on in our neck of the woods. They may not last much longer outside than the time it took to get them ready to go out, but it's worth it for all of us...
Life doesn't get much better than having a big sister to pull you around in a sled!

(for mom, either, who gets to stay inside while the kids are out, for the first time in 7 years!)