Buh-Bye 2016

We flew home from California with only a couple days left of the year.  We knew we wanted to bee-line up to Woodstock and enjoy a nice long weekend with just the four of us.

It was quite a different scene from what we had left on the west coast.  The city and upstate were a winter wonderland, and our house in Woodstock had a foot or two of fresh snow.  So fresh that it was still snowing as we pulled up.

The kids did a lot of sledding and spent a lot of time by our fireplace reading, playing LEGOs, doing a puzzle, and relaxing.  We all stayed up until midnight on New Years Eve and toasted with Champagne and sparkling apple cider.  Then we took our traditional New Years Day hike, this time in a new part of Woodstock that we hadn't explored before.

We returned to the city so that Ella could start back to school on Tuesday.  Holden and I eased back into school as well.

 

He started a new class called Medieval Adventures taught by a professor of history at a local college.  Their first meeting was at The Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art located at the top of Manhattan overlooking the Hudson River and dedicated to art, architecture, and gardens of Medieval Europe.  We had been there a couple times before but touring with this teacher who is so full of knowledge on that period was a completely different experience.

The oldest known deck of playing cards

His class in front of the famous unicorn tapestry

The next day we woke up early to head all the way to Pennsylvania (just an hour and a half drive).  Holden joined a homeschool ski club that goes to this small, family friendly ski resort six times over the next two months.  He absolutely loved his first time skiing (he had tried snowboarding once before) and Kevin's hoping these six trips will get him hooked.

I also thoroughly enjoyed myself, albeit by the fire in the lodge reading a good book.

On Friday we headed back upstate to Woodstock for the weekend.  A lot of the snow had melted but it was still pretty chilly.  We joined a guided walk on Saturday morning with the Woodstock Land Conservancy.  They lead walks the first Saturday of each month and this month's topic was animal tracking.

I was pretty impressed that Ella and I lasted an hour walking in 19 degree weather but even more impressed that Kevin and Holden lasted two hours!  We saw tracks from Coy wolves and fishers and lots of mice and of course pellets and scat from many different species.  Holden was in heaven.

His weekend didn't end so well though.  As Kevin and I were packing up the house to head back to the city the kids started sledding in our back yard.  You know, the yard that's filled with dozens of trees...  Not a full minute after Kevin said, "Someone's going to get hurt" did we hear the ear-piercing screams of Holden who had just slammed feet first into a tree at the bottom of our lot.

 

He's been laid up on the couch ever since.  The doctor says it doesn't look like anything's broken but his prescription is to keep the foot elevated for a couple days while I wait on him hand and foot.  He's loving every minute of it.