Hiking

Today after dinner we went on a little walk on our land. We have some blackberry bushes the boys wanted to check out and Joe wanted to put up his deer camera. So off we went on our "venture" as Luke likes to call them. Eli was on my back in the backpack. He was quite content to hang out back there as long as I would give him a blackberry now and then. The problem is we have had too many pickers and there weren't that many left, so he would get upset with me and go "WAAN". Well Joe found the perfect spot for the deer camera, and he went off the path into the woods. Luke followed him of course and then started to yell for Graham to come too. Well Graham is holding onto my hand and isn't letting go. So I see a spot that looks like not many prickers and we can get into the woods area better, so we duck under some tree branches (which Eli thought was funny) and the we are in the woods. There was a little ditch almost, where the water would come down and it kind of made like a little ravine (I am talking 3-4 ft) but a narrow pathway and then around a sharp bend. Well Luke wanted to climb down and then wanted Graham to go to. So Joe took them and I stayed on top with Eli. Then both Luke and I saw a bridge up ahead at the same time. Someone had taken an old railroad tie and put it across this ditch. So we walk to that area a little bit, and Eli starts getting animated on my back. Swinging his arms and squawking (what he is saying we weren't sure). But we guessed he wanted down. So we got him out, and boom, he takes off right for this "bridge" (only like a 8 in drop off into 100 yr old leaves and sticks). He crawls across it no problem, gets to the other side and goes back. Luke is starting to get brave and jumping off it. Graham, is being cautious, and needs a hand to hold to go across it. Pretty soon Eli is crawling down in to the ditch and just walking all over, and pulling himself up onto the bridge from below. No fear at all. He was more adventurous than Graham. At one point Luke went for a little walk around some trees, and Eli just followed him the whole way. It was of course the one time neither of us had our phones for a picture :( But you may see the spot in our Christmas photo, as it looked like a neat place for a picture.

Baking

Since Joe came home I have baked more in 1 day, than in a whole year combined. I am not sure what got into me. I made blackberry muffins last week, that were very good. So we had received zucchini from our neighbor, and I made some zucchini bread. Also good, or so Joe tells me so. Joe is always saying he likes cinnamon rolls with chili. To me that sounds weird, however to him it sounds delicious. I tried once to make them in about 1 hrs, and realized the "rising" part of yeast wasn't happening, so I canned the idea. So I tried again tonight. We will see how they turn out. I had to get some tips from my neighbor Sylvia, as I wasn't sure how long you "let rise" the rolls. I even decided to make homemade icing, as I realized there wasn't any icing in my recipe. I may not be the Next Food Network Star, but I am trying to use up the brown sugar and powdered sugar that are in my canisters that have been there since our move from Texas. (Just kidding I threw them away!!!)

ZOO

So Joe leaves us for the weekend and goes hiking with friends from Kansas in Colorado. He wants to do something really cool like climb a 14,000 ft mountain. Since the last time we checked our backyard only had a 100 ft incline, he had to travel for this. So we were left alone.


Instead of being alone, my friend Daly came down for the weekend. We decided to do our own, fun, and cool thing--and go to the zoo.





The Pittsburgh zoo has a kids area, we typically don't make it there because the boys are too tired after seeing all the other animals. today I decided to go there first. The boys loved it, especially trying to get the deer to touch them, petting the camel, and sheep, and baby goats.




We also picked blackberries in our backyard and played in the pool outside. We had a good weekend ourselves. However the boys were all very happy to see Joe arrive at 945 pm Sunday evening. Everyone stayed up for the event and were treated to gifts and then bed!!



PS-Joe did make it to the top of the mountain!! WAY TO GO JOE!!!!

Boys and Hats

So the boys, especially Luke, have been really into hats lately. We finally put up a hat holder in their room, and Luke has stolen all of Joe's hats and claimed them as his own. So we went out for ice cream and put the Penn State hat on Eli, so everyone needed a hat. Luke took Joe's hunting hat, and Graham took Luke's Phillies hat and put it on backwards. Very cute