Vermont

What's the only logical thing to do for Spring Break when you've been getting 100" of snow in a month?  Why, go to Vermont, of course!

Reuel's cousin and her family have an absolutely quaint, just-what-you'd-imagine-in-Vermont, home near Craftsbury, and they invited us to join them for a visit over the recent break.  What fun we had!  (Well, except for having a child with a stomach bug the day we were supposed to leave.  And that minor problem of our radiator cracking on the way up and getting stranded and needing overnight car repairs.  And a rather severe, persistent headache on my part that didn't let up much on the trip.  But still, even with all that, we had so much fun!)

On the way up we stopped at the Ice Castles in Lincoln, NH.  VERY cold day.  But super fun :)  Eden had enough after about 5 minutes and informed us, "I am too fweezing."  It might have been about 4-6 degrees while we were there?  Something like that.

Then after stopping to check directions, smelling a strange engine odor (Amy) and deciding to carry on along a road called something-something-MOUNTAIN Rd. (Reuel), we were forced to pull over in a random rural driveway with something volatile pouring out of the engine.  (I wouldn't want to point fingers or anything.)  We just so happened to pull over in the driveway of a GM mechanic, who diagnosed leaking antifreeze and gave us a gallon of water and a gallon of antifreeze to get back down the mountain to the mechanic he recommended in town.  A blessing in a trial!  We got down, the mechanic took us right away, and we learned that the oil cap that had been lost during a routine oil change over a year ago had found its way to a fan, which kicked it into the radiator and cracked the radiator...he found the chewed up oil cap and everything.  So...if a mechanic returns your car to you without the oil cap screwed on, well, now you know what could happen!  Reuel's cousin mercifully came the hour's drive to pick us up and take us back to their home.  Then, we had all this fun!  The mornings were 20 below, but once the sun really came out and warmed things up it was at least a balmy 2 or 3!

Somebody is luuuucky to have a doting older brother.

Laura and Porter?  Pebbles?

Oh boy, do we hear the request for a dog even MORE often that previously :)

Swinging and warming in the barn.

Eden was pleased as punch in her cross-country polk.

So soothing, she fell asleep!  One of about 3 naps since the day she turned 2!

The boys say, "We hate cross-country skiing.  It is too much work.  And not very exciting compared to downhill."

Took a nice long nap out in the cold!

Tandem skiiers :)

Reuel, Nancy and Steve took the long way home (I drove the kids).  Reuel was a sweat ball by the time he got back, quite a workout!

And the highlight for Owen...

Heart prayer

... so, yeah, parenting is hard & beautiful,
and very, very hard & very, very beautiful, 
and sometimes you just get down on the floor & weep 
& there's no shame in it -- tears just saying we're loving deep.
Parenting is hard, not because we're getting it wrong, but because we're getting to do holy work -- holy work *is* hard work.
That's the miracle of parenting: 
labor never stops & we never stop having to remember to breathe. 
And even the sound of our breathing is saying His name - YHWH.
And all the parents exhaled... and our every breath calls for You to come, Lord, please come -- Come help us to labor over these beloved children, that they'd deliver into the wide expanse of Your fulfilling grace -- 
& never forget their name: Beloved.


- Ann Voskamp (www.aholyexperience.com)

The Winter of '15

It was a winter to remember.  (Still is, actually.  Although a 38 degree day yesterday--which felt like shorts weather--did a little damage to the piles.)

When your kids can stand on top of the piles after the 38 degree day and still tower over you, you know you've gotten 100" of snow in a month.

When you take your life in your hands every time you turn out of your driveway (not *really* being sure that oncoming traffic is absent, seeing as the drifts at the curb are too high to permit visibility), you know it's been storming.

When you hold your breath passing by oncoming cars on a road that was way too narrow *before* snow was encasing it, you are ready for spring.

When you live in the 'burbs rather than the city and your city friends actually have nowhere else to physically put the snow and have to shovel what they can well over their own height, well, you're more content with that long commute you make to church every week.

There is a swingset under there...and that is not trick angle photography...

The mail comes...sometimes.

Owen has taking to sliding down the sides of these...there's a tall rhododendron bush under this pile!

Ice dams are a problem.  We haven't had leaking yet, but many have.

The boys go into their cave under the patio table.

"Where's Eden???"  says mom.  Oh, there she is; just shinnied up the snow mountain!

Even the littles can climb trees with a snow stool!

Double decker yard