Spring in the Woods

Do you know that feeling when you have a pile of laundry and you keep ignoring it and it just grows and grows and grows until you actually go out and buy new underwear rather than tackle that now unmanageable mountain of dirty clothes?

Well, that's how I feel about this blog right now.

Three weeks is unacceptable.  Blogging every 3-4 days works.  I can whip out a few pictures and a quick few sentences letting you all know how we spent our time in just a few minutes when it's only been a handful of days.  But as it gets to be weeks I know it's going to take me an hour or two to collect photos and try to even remember the highlights.  And so I ignore it.

I'll do a quick summary now of our spring break in Woodstock three weeks ago and then if I can get myself back to the computer today, I'll try to catch you up on the last two weeks.

The garden is starting its spring bloom and the weather was gorgeous almost all week.  Kevin joined us on the bookend weekends of spring break in Woodstock and the kids and I ate ice cream daily, took a couple hikes, and did a lot of spring cleaning while he was working in the city.

Fairy houses are popping up in the garden

Discovered a new hike in Phoenicia

The kids and I spent most of the week emptying out the back house that we had been using for storage for the last year, and painting it.  The plan is that it will be the new Kids Cabin.  What would have taken me two days by myself took me five days with the kids' "help".

Before shots

After!

We also hiked a trail we've hiked in snow several times but really enjoyed in the warm sunshine.  More fairy houses were built along the way.

Holden was the only Skaggs brave enough to jump in the swimming hole we frequent all summer.  The running water was snow just hours before...

When Kevin returned the next weekend we did more spring cleaning.  This time we stained a deck for the first time.  Back-breaking work.

Before

After

The kids did some staining as well.  They took a couple of dull and peeling benches and brightened them up.

Before

Before

Can't miss them now

It was Easter, so the kids did the obligatory egg coloring and hunting.  And because Ella was writing a comparative religion paper over spring break (and only because she was writing the paper), we attended Easter Sunday services at a sweet little church in Woodstock.

Uncle Jack saw that we had recently hiked to Kaaterskill Falls (a favorite hike of ours in the area) so he kindly sent us a print of a painting he did of the very same falls.  It now hangs proudly in our cabin.

Our groundhog/woodchuck that lives under our house is now so unafraid of us that we've given him a name: Woody.  He visited us many times.  Makes me a little sad that I'll be calling animal control soon to get him a new home.

 

Not that sad though.