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.

If You're Going to San Francisco, Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair

I'M BACK!!!

Actually, I never left but life just got in the way of blogging, as it often does.

To save you spending an hour or more reading about our last three weeks, I'll split our adventures into two very dense blog posts.  I'll keep the text to a minimum and let the photos speak for themselves.

We spent a wonderful week in the Bay Area over Christmas.  What made it one of our better trips home was that we didn't plan anything ahead of time other than seeing family.  That took a lot of stress and overscheduling off my plate.  It did mean however, that we didn't get to see as many friends as we would have loved to see.  As our time permitted, we popped in on friends here and there.  We also had time to play tourist in our own city.

We went to the top of Coit Tower - something I had never done before, believe it or not.

We had TWO great Christmases - the first just the four of us with Grandma and Grandpa on the actual Christmas morning, and the second a couple days later with Kevin's sister and her family.

We drove north to Sonoma County to see two of my sisters and spent the day enjoying my eldest sister's mini-farm of animals.

And then we ended our trip with a beautiful walk on my favorite beach with family and our dogs.  I have to say, it was pretty hard to leave.

My mom is off on another of her amazing adventures, RVing around Southern California and Arizona, escaping the cold for the winter.  So unfortunately, we didn't get to see her this trip.  But we had a chance to spend some good quality time with Kevin's parents, his sister Maxine, her husband Sean, and our adorable and spunky nieces Rowan and Piper.  A perfect way to wrap up 2016.