When 6 becomes 4

When my mom left here following Christmas, she explained to Nathan that when we got back from Boone he could come to her house. Well as they say in Roxboro, this little guy is smart. At least once a day while we were in Boone, Nathan asked if we could go home so he could go to Granny's house and feed Maggie (their dog). Although there were many tears from him as we were packing up and preparing to leave "his Boone house", as soon as we pulled into our driveway he declares that it's time to go to Granny's house. Thankfully, my parents were open to the having Ryan and Nathan spend some time with them this week. I don't know if I could have held Nathan off any longer.
Ryan got to join in on the fun while promising to serve as interpreter and to do all his school work that I sent along! It's been a long time since Philip and I have had just Peter and Emma to ourselves. It's been such a blessing to spend these few days with just the big kids. I miss my little guys. I'm thankful that they are soaking up some undivided attention from their grandparents and I hope they are filling up their grandparents hearts with love. It's been really quiet around here. The Lord has used this time and extra room in my brain to speak gentle words of encouragement to me. I am thankful.

Ruff Ridge

While eating our lunch on the parkway, we say the park ranger passed by us about 3 times. On his third time past us, he graciously stopped and explained himself. They were patrolling the area in search of a certain suspicious vehicle. In our brief conversation he did give us the suggestion of driving down the parkway a bit and trying out the Ruff Ridge trail. As soon as he mentioned the trail, I recognized it from my college days. Refreshed from our lunch, we hit the trails again. I'm glad we took his advice because it was a beautiful place.

Hiking

We welcomed the sunshine the following day with great enthusiasm. It's our tradition to hike the Viaduct so that is where we headed to after we had breakfast and packed a picnic lunch. Again, we were greeted with beautiful and unseasonable warm Boone weather.
Our normal entry point to the trail was blocked off so we improvised by walking down road until we found a way to enter the trail. Luckily there wasn't much traffic!Nathan was a champ on this hike. He was determined to be like the big boys and walked for close to an hour.
After a wonderful time in the woods, we found a way out of the woods and back to the road to lead us to the car and to our lunch.I'm quite sure that money could not have bought a more beautiful setting for our lunch.
I love how Nathan knows that these are the blue ridge mountains! Can you tell we had Cheetos with our lunch.

rainy days

After a great weekend with friends who joined us at the cabin and a refreshing visit to the church of my college days, we greeted Monday morning with a down pouring of rain. What's to do in Boone when it's raining? We camped out at Chick-fila while catching up with another friend from college and then hit the bowling alley!It was a fun way to spend a rainy Monday. We stopped by Goodwill on our way home and Philip scored a $6.00 pair of skis and I scored a $3.50 hiking/backpack! Good times.

Vacation recaps

Day One: We set out to experience Howard's Knobb. It's a landmark in Boone and a site I remember visiting while in college. It was a mere coincident that the landmark is named for a man connected to the Revolutionary war times. Check mark for field trip! Unfortunately, after we drove there we find that the park is closed during the winter months. However, we borrowed the drive way of an abandoned house to see the view.

A question

I'm not sure why but I can distinctly remember a woman asking Philip and I this question about 11 years ago, "If you don't watch TV then what do you do?". A lot of time has passed since we had that conversation and for the most part we still don't watch TV. We have come a long way since then. Back then our TV was in a closet and we only brought it out when we had a movie to watch. Now, the TV does sit in the living room and it gets turned on more than it did 12 years ago. We still only watch it on occasion more than I would really like. Nathan has probably watched more TV in his 2 and 1/2 years than Peter watched in 4 but at least he knows how to sing along with the best of them.
This video - this night - of a spontaneous dance party with friends reminded me of that question.