Four Part Harmony

Thought I’d put up some more photos from the rest of our week of snowbound excitement…

At some point the weather warmed up to the point where a proper snowball could finally be formed, so my mom and I bundled up the kids and set to work building some snowmen in the front yard.

Milo and I tried to make the Worlds Biggest Snowball, but soon realized we’d never get the next one up on top of it.

We salvaged some produce from the bottom of the fridge, found some scarves and hats and voila! Two snowmen (or snowwomen, I’m not sure). Anna had lost interest by that point, so mom and I ended up putting on the finishing touches. We named them at some point…Frosty, and I forget the other one’s name….actually I forget which one was Frosty too.

Sadly, sometime the next day the snowpeople suffered a terrible fate. We like to think that maybe it was natural causes, but now suspect foul play.

Christmas morning. Anna was pretty excited to see what was in her stocking. Milo got this cool wooden rattle and some teething rings…some other things I’m forgetting. Anna got some painter’s tape, a deck of cards, some trail mix, a paper cutting stamp…and probably some other things I’m forgetting.
Later, we sat around the tree and opened presents. Anna made sure to help everyone get their presents open.

I think I mentioned that we had been snowbound and in a craft/project frenzy. Here are some of the fruits of those labors. Some hand-dyed (onion skins) and freezer paper stenciled onesies for Milo (he’s already almost too big for them we’ve found out).

Some hand sewn felt blocks. Nicki and my mom made these and they turned out great (I cut the starfish).

Milo likes them too.

Nicki made Anna this camping-themed skirt, and she and my mom collaborated on this little fabric tent which folds out and has two little people that camp out in it. It’s hard to describe, and I guess this picture doesn’t do it great justice, but it’s pretty neat. Anna is really enjoying it anyway.

This post is getting long but bear with me, I have to tell you about our Boxing Day snowshoeing excursion that almost never came to be. For starters, the road report was saying not to even leave town…they were saying chains required from Troutdale all the way out to Cascade Locks. The sun was shining though, and we already had the chains on anyway and we had been cooped up long enough. We headed out and Doyle, Dawn, and Kadin were going to meet us at the trailhead to the Government Mineral Springs Cabin. This is an old Forest Service Guard Station in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, outside of Carson, Washington. Nicki and I have stayed there twice before, once before Anna was born and once when she was about Milo’s age.

The road out the gorge proved to be not too bad. We took the chains off right away and made good time. Put the chains back on in Carson, where the snow was quite a bit deeper as expected. They had had a ton of snow and the trees were heavy with it. We got 10 miles or so out of town, almost to the trailhead, when we came across some people going the other direction who told us a tree was down across the road. We went and checked it out, didn’t seem too bad, but still impassible.

Here’s the rest of the road, trees leaning. We had turned back, ran into our friends, and were evaluating the options when the County road crew showed up and cut the tree out of the way for us. We ventured on as it was getting later in the afternoon at this point and we still had to snowshoe into the cabin.

We got to the trailhead (or close as we could get), and started getting us and the kids geared up. About that time we realized that our main bag of food was comfortably tucked away in our refrigerator at home. We took inventory of what we had brought collectively, and made the decision that we still had plenty of food to make a comfortable trip of it (we were only going in overnight afterall) so we packed up what we had into packs and onto a sled, hoisted the kids into slings and into our arms, and set out.

Here’s the trailhead. There had been a ton of snow, and almost nobody back there for several days. A group of cross country skiiers arrived at the same time as us, and broke a narrow ski track before we walked in, but otherwise we were breaking a trail in several feet of fresh wet snow. Nicki and I have snowshoed on this trail to the cabin before and it’s generally a short quick stroll. This time it wasn’t that way at all. It was pretty grueling. I’ll skim over the details.

Eventually, by nightfall, we were all safely and comfortably sipping wine in the toasty cabin and the kids were happily pulling all the utensils out of the drawers and running around crazily.

The garage/woodshed. The next morning.

The cabin.

Precariously leaning tree.

The hike out was slightly less grueling, if only because we knew what we were in for, and because we had taken an early load of stuff out so the last trip was mostly just with the kids and one load of stuff on the sled. Also, by this point there was slightly less trail to blaze.

Back at the trailhead after the hike out (which was mostly in a drizzling rain). We got to the car and were soaked. On the drive out it was clear that several more trees had fallen in the night and had thankfully been cleared by the road crews that morning. Power lines were down too.

It was a fun trip, one not soon to be forgotten.

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It’s been an interesting couple of weeks here in Portland. I’m not quite sure where to begin…

The snow has been coming down for days now. This is what it looked like outside this afternoon.

We’ve been pretty cooped up for the better part of a week with a mixture of snow, ice and windy weather keeping us from getting out and about very easily. My mom’s been in town (her arrival coincided suspiciously with the onset of this weather) and so we’ve been keeping busy doing crafts and making gifts and doing stuff around the house.

Here’s Anna and Grandma making some ornaments for our tree.

Unfortunately, Anna, Milo, and Nicki have all been battling a bout of sicknesses this whole time. Anna got off somewhat easy, but Milo was really quite sick for several days and is just now getting back to his old self.

Earlier this week we had a brief window of warmer weather and the snow melted enough for a trip out to lunch and a walk to the park.

When the snow fell earlier this week it was nice and soft…too cold for snowballs or snowmen, but just right for running around in. We made a train track in the front yard.

It was snowy, but manageable, and not too icy.

Then the snow really started to fall. The wind has been blowing too so we’ve had some North Dakota style snow drifts forming up against the cars and the garage.

Sunday we had our winter solstice celebration. Nicki had made some very thoughtful gifts for Anna and Milo, and had planned a bunch of activities to celebrate the changing of the season. Some of the plans were foiled by the weather, but we still had a nice day.

Here’s the hat Nicki made for Anna, and a birthday crown for Milo. She actually had made the crown for Milo’s 6-month birthday last week, so he got his gift again on the solstice (he didn’t seem to mind). They also each got a new book.

We also made some seed and almond butter covered pinecones and hung them out for the birds. Anna thought it was a little too messy, but seemed to have fun anyway.

Here they are. So far we haven’t seen a single bird, or even a squirrel. I think they are all probably pretty hunkered down too until the weather clears a bit.

Despite our best efforts to keep ourselves entertained, by today cabin fever (Anna called it cabbage fever) had started to set in. Today, with the kids feeling mostly better, and me stranded at home from work, Nicki and I left Anna and Milo with Grandma, put on our snowshoes and headed out for a walk to the grocery store.

The snow is 10 or more inches deep now, and mostly untouched. Very few cars on the road and the whole city was quiet. We met a few other walkers and a few skiers on our journey.

We went down through Woodstock park, where we take Anna all the time. I was contemplating the slide, but couldn’t figure how to do it with the ‘shoes on.

Snowshoeing down Woodstock after hitting the grocery store. We met up with our neighbor on the way home and stopped off at our local restaurant for a drink on the way. It was a much needed and rejuvenating outing.

We didn’t have anyone to take a picture of us so we attempted a self portrait. Those never quite seem to work out that great, but this one is kind of nice.

Hope you all are keeping warm and enjoying the winter weather and this holiday season.

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I’ve been away from the blog for a while. You’d think that with the short days and wet weather that it would be easier to stay on top of, but somehow that hasn’t been the case. Still, we’ve had some fun adventures this past month so here are some photos…

We went to Cincinnati a couple weeks ago and there was a big family gathering. Milo met his great-grandpa and great-grandma Newman, as well as several of his aunts and uncles and cousins.

Another photo of Milo with his great-grandma.

And here’s a nice one with great-grandpa.

Anna also got to enjoy some time with her great-grandparents. She especially liked this morning book reading session with her great-grandpa.

Anna spent a lot of time playing with her cousins. Here she is playing with her cousin Rachael. Anna really adored all of her cousins, and they all seemed to have fun together.

This is the only photo we managed to get of all of the cousins together (they move pretty quick). Eating breakfast with great-grandma.

One afternoon, Nicki took all the girls on an exploring adventure in the woods behind her parents house.

Anna ended getting tired and came back inside early, but Nicki and her nieces ended up spending much of the afternoon hiking around. I think they hung the camera from a tree branch to take this photo.

Our Thanksgiving weekend was also really nice. We got together with the same group of friends we have for the past several years and had a very nice day/evening and a great feast. The kids amongst that group of friends continues to grow (go figure) and this year was a great year for the kids. They even set up a kids table this year which was pretty neat.

Our friends Owen and Molly were in town from Port Townsend, WA. They’re recently back to Washington after several years in Vermont. We hardly ever see them so it was a nice treat to spend an evening hanging out. We made some plans for a winter trip up to see them.

Sunday we went on a hike in Tryon Creek State Park, which was just the right end to the long weekend. Anna started out really well, then I think she started getting tired and wanting to be carried. The situation was going downhill until we started playing hide and seek along the trail, which totally rejuvenated her. We would take turns running ahead on the trail and hiding, and ended up covering quite a bit of ground that way.

Here’s Milo on the hike, I was carrying him in the sling, and trying to take this picture which turned out to be more difficult than you might think it would be. He slept a lot, but when he was awake he was very quiet and just stared up at the silhouette of the trees against the sky (this is a perennial favorite amongst babies, I’ve observed).

Finally, here’s a scene we almost missed while eating lunch after our hike. We looked over and Floydie and Milo were getting to know each other. Or more accurately, he was grabbing her neck and fur with his baby deathgrip. Thankfully Floydie seemed pretty happy for the attention and affection and she snuggled up next to him for a few minutes, purring, while he kept trying to pet her and grab her tail. It was highly entertaining, but pretty cute too.

And now you know what we’ve been up to this past month. Hope you all are well and are enjoying these last weeks of fall. So long for now.

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