4 Months Later...

Well, hey there!  We've survived the 'most brutal winter in a dozen years' or something like that.  The sad part is, the last 'record snows' the state had...is when we were in college here.  Sigh.

But, all winter long, I kept my eyes on Easter.  If we make it to Easter, I thought, life will be good!  The babe will stop crying, and we'll have a bit more of a routine, and we'll be able to go outside again...

Heh.  The babe mostly stopped crying- at least those eternal colic fits.  And we sorta had a routine- which I promptly messed up by working again.  Only part time, but still.

And THEN, the weather played us.  Now- almost a month after Easter? - we're starting to hit 70 degrees more than once a week.  But it's not 70 in the morning, which means layers.  Still.

But I found my favorite fleece vest!  And almost all the crazy work events are over! and it's 70+degrees out - at least part of the day!  And... AND, the babe is LAUGHING.  On purpose.

We're falling in love all over again.  Ah, spring!

Speaking of Spring... though we live in an apartment, the grounds here are nice.  We see all sorts of critters when we're out.  A chipmunk that likes to race across our porch and under the table.  Squirrels that like to bury their nuts in our planters.  Large birds holding small ones in their talons.  The occasional deer (while driving, not in our 'yard').   Oh, and falcons on the highway signs!  Here:  Bunnies, mostly at dusk.  And- the best part- a pair of chickadees nesting in a birdhouse Kaden made last year!  Right on our porch, which is pretty awesome to see and hear each morning.

And, of course, our favorite little groundhog- who may or may not be teething at 4 months.  Drool or no, we'll keep him!

It's easier to love States when they behave

Is it Spring or Summer where you are?  Or winter?   I'm not sure what to call this here.  It's been warm, even HOT, for 3 whole days.  But the "hot" is... sneaky.  It LOOKS beautiful, and it FEELS really nice... and then after an hour in the sun, I'm all tired out.  Wha?  I'm used to knowing/feeling it's hot all day, and not being sapped out by it.  So that's new.

But-- I'm also not used to it getting very nice, very quickly  AS THE SUN GOES DOWN.  That's genius right there.

We have begun exploring parks a bit more, though quickly Kaden has favored two of them.  One (see above) is a HUUUUGE wooden castle outdoor playset.  Sure, there's swings and other stuff, but the main attraction is all this linked up wooden goodness.  Most of it is big enough for an adult to chase a kid-- except when a kid scampers across a wooden bridge and then just hangs out grinning at you.  Ahem.

We also made the best of one rainy day (sorry for a sideways pic) and I let the boy romp in the rain and resulting mud.  As a bonus I was able to get half of the patio garden set up (the other half needs to be completed SOON as the seeds are now sprouting! yay!).  Anyway, the rain was quite delightful- a long, gentle soaking with no thunder or lightning to scare us inside... and, surprisingly, hardly any humidity!  The humid days come, of course, but are nothing like what we're used to, so we're enjoying it.  I forgot how much I liked PA mud!

We were also able to take a road trip... and had some goofy fun with friends.  See above and below for photo proof.  This particular friend family also moved north, but to a neighboring state so it's a 6 hour drive.  All their relatives kept saying things like "whoo- six hours! that's a long drive, eh?" And we would look at them a little bit puzzled.  "Not really" we'd reply, "it's a lot closer than the 2 day drive to Florida".

hmmmm.

We ventured out to police museum... which was equally cool and disappointing.  I was glad Kade doesn't read yet, so I could skip all the displays about the 'bad guys'.  He was enamored with the motorcycle, of course, and more excited about the hands on 'crime lab' than the gun display.  Whew!  We had fun taking our fingerprints and using magnifying glasses, and yelling out "ALFRED!  GET OUR SUITS READY!"  Not much happens in our life that can't be related to Robin and Batman...

And, we visited a nice little farmers market.  The boy got a tattoo, a smoothie sample, a chance to plant *another* pumpkin seed... and a yoga class.  We watched from a distance- and I'm assuming the teacher must have mentioned warrior pose, because all of a sudden Kaden started doing his "ninja karate moves".   The teacher was patient, though, and rounded up the cats, er, boys and got them to try other poses too.  Win-win.  

Moral of the story?  PA is easier to love when it's warm out.  You all knew that, and I'm sure we did on some level too, but it's nice to be experiencing it (finally)!  Though I did push the envelope and try to go swimming today.  The pool is OPEN!  It's JUNE!  I'm sure it'll be fine!  Five minutes later, with blue lips and uncontrollable teeth chattering, we scrapped that plan.  In his best attempt to cheer me up, Jim said he was sure it would be warm... next month.  But the garden is growing and sprouting and the farmers markets are open, so I can wait for a swim :)

Spring is coming! Spring is coming!

It almost hit 60 degrees the other day, so we headed to a local park.

Spring, oh early Spring!

You look a lot like Fall. 

Our original intent was to get a little hike in on the trails, but we are so easily distracted. 

 So we explored.  And we found this cool creek.

We had a lot of fun showing Kaden how to use the rocks as stepping stones.

He had a lot of fun doing it "by myself" and then climbing up the embankment on the other side.

Well, it *was* fun... until he fell in.

That water was c-c-c-coooolllldd, my friends!

But he recovered.  Eagle eye JimDad saw some flowers at the edge of the forest.

 And then I found some wee little buds on one of the trees.

Kaden even took a photo of us...

 to make up for all the photos I take of him.

Good times, north of the Mason Dixon line.