Big Snow

Man we got buried. It was so fun, then so messy, then so inconvenient (overzealous school closings and getting way behind on work). But months and years from

now we will only remember the fun part. 

Little Hike

We went for another hike yesterday for some unique snow fun in the forest.  So nothing looks familiar to the boys, I realized, due to the blanket of thick snow on everything.  They dont look up and around at surroundings as much as they are focused on things on the ground and at their eye level.  And, you can only tell the trail by the line of footsteps ahead of you.  But… is that really the trail?  We are just trusting the people before us.

I suggested we take a new route which turned out to go in a direction we didnt want to go, so we decided to go off trail.  Or, I decided.  The boys were a little nervous as this was totally new area, plus the snow cover unfamiliarity on top of that.  You really feel lost in broad daylight.  But, it was an opportunity to think differently about being in the woods, to think about the land and surroundings and not the visible trail.  We stopped, talked about what aspects of the forest there we do know: a stream.  Okay, then, how to we find a stream?  We walk downhill.  We did, and found a stream, and lots of animal tracks where something was looking for a good place to cross the stream.  But this wasnt our stream.  So maybe this stream meets up with the one we know.  The one we know is bigger… so what should we do?  Follow it more, downhill.  And so on… and it was so fun to see them in that moment of transition between when everything was unfamiliar and boom, here we are, at the stream we know, with the bridge and the boulders!  And look, here are the footprints again, so this must be the trail!

So fun to watch this happen.  All the while they were asking questions like " what if we can't find the car?", "do you have your phone so we can call a police officer?", "how much snacks do we have?" "Do you know where we are?" and so on…  They did not realize you could actually see houses from where we were.  Once they knew where we were, they wanted to have their snacks immediately.


Sitting, quiet, in that silence, on that white, under that blue, I noticed we were all watching a chickadee tumble around on a cluster of dead leaves, foraging. From nowhere Heath asked Alder what he thought God was.  Alder described a man, with a beard, who "is huuuge", up in the sky.  Alder returned the question to Heath and Heath described pretty much the same thing but added that God knows "all the magic".  We talked about how they both have similar pictures of God, both in some human form, larger than life, up above everything, controlling, strong, old, good.  Then more silence, I waited and then, yes, they asked me what I thought God looked like.  I have no idea.  I just like to think that bits of God are in everything - this snow, that beech bark, that chickadee, that blue sky, and you, and you.  And then Alder said - and I dont know what to make of this and in a way I sort of wish he wouldnt have said this, but he did - "Ah, I wish I would have said that".  I remember the big old man with a beard image too.  Where do we get this?

And then a border collie came by, so eager with its owner to have sticks thrown.  We talked to her, NOT asking about God, though that would have been so awesome to lay that on her.  We talked about a book we must have read the boys a thousand times: "Going on a bear hunt".  The dog in the book looked and acted just like the one we met.  We havent looked at that book in at least two years, but they were able to dredge it up from memory.

Nearly to the car, we noticed the oaks that Mommy likes to point out, looking like people upside down, stuck in the ground, legs sticking up.  But today, they were wearing underwear.   Alder wanted to talk about their butt, which was really big on one side.  Not sure what Heath is up to...

Little Heavy Things

This post deserves the self-title; we know sometimes the smallest of things can tell us much bigger things.

First of all,  Valentines Day every year, we think back to the day we moved to Richmond.  This one marked 8 years here for us!  There have been times, for various reasons, that I couldnt picture still being here.  But, it certainly feels like the best place to be right now.  We are so fortunate and so grateful.

So Grammy and PaPa were able to honor a spur of the moment request, and watch the boys for the weekend in NC.  This was to give Lesley and I the ability to focus on building a bunk bed for their room.  (Yes, we did also just simply have a nice weekend together.)   For better or worse, we had decided the best way to do it for the room was to build from scratch.  And, it was time; they are simply too big for sharing a double bed, especially considering the way Heath crawls all over the bed and Alder through the night.

Lots of cuts and sanding in sub-freezing temps and bitter windchill, but we did it.  They came home to a surprise and loved it.  Luckily we already knew that Heath prefered the lower cave, with more room, and that Alder wanted the top.  So that worked itself out.

The bunk beds, while a big effort, are sort of a small thing though, marking a big turning point.  We don't get to check in on these boys every night any more to untangle them from one anther and make sure they are covered and set for the night.  We will do the checking in of course but how we would find them was always a surprise.  Would they be sweetly cuddled?  What awkward position would Alder be in when he finally gave in and let sleep happen?  How would Alder be trying to keep warm since Heath took all the covers?  How much of the bed would Heath take up and how close the falling off the edge would Alder be?  How can we make sure and use our backs correctly as we bend over and move around these 55 pound sacks of dead weight in the dark?

Another small thing: notice who is reading to who, and who is having a hard time keeping eyes open!

Then, upon bringing the boys back, the snow was falling heavy.  By the next morning (yesterday), we had 8 or so inches of perfect sledding powder.  All school and work closed, on top of a long weekend.

We have a killer hill - "Dead Mans Hill" - in our neighborhood.  It's like watching a pilgrimage to see the kids and families walking from everywhere to get to it when we have good snow.  Everyone is happy.  

Heath wasn't so into it.  First run and he and I got covered in snow.  He was done.  Understandable.  

Alder on the other hand went down alone every time, loving it, hiking back up with no complaints, getting snow in the neck, waiting in line…  Just last year he could only take so much.  This year he was ready.  Heath will be too.

And we all went for a hike along the creek in the forest by our neighborhood.  We LOVE hiking in the snow, wildlife track and sign, how the snow and ice play on everything.  Everything is so peaceful and newly defined with that white blanket of windswept contour draped all over.