Kathryn spent the weekend in Rochester helping take care of her dad.  Friday night Eric played in the sandbox while I hoed part of our garden and planted a row of early peas.  Saturday we had sunshine and temperatures in the high 50’s.  Eric and I were outside mid-morning – him playing in the sand box and me raking the lawn.  In the afternoon Eric went to Trevor’s to play and I continued raking and went across the road to cut brush (primarily sumac) near the silo.

Sunday we received rain and wind.  The combination of warm temperatures, rain and wind have caused most of the snow to disappear.  In addition, the ice covering both my pond and the pond below the house melted and broke up.

K, Eric & I met our friends Kent, Kathy, Marissa and Julia in Boston on Saturday for three days of vacation. We played tourist.

Sunday we toured the USS Constitution, and the Freedom trail including the Old North Church, Paul Revere’s house, ending up at Faneuil Hall. Monday we visited Harvard’s Museum of Natural History, the New England Aquarium and watched the IMAX movie Under The Sea 3D. We hiked to see the site of the Boston Tea Party, but it burned down two years ago. Tuesday we visited the Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library and the Museum of Science.

Below Jim, Eric, Kent, Julia, Kathy and Marissa in front of the USS Constitution.

Eric follows the Freedom Trail.

Kathy, Julia and Eric in front of the Old North Church.

A statute of Paul Revere points to the tower at the Old North Church where the lanterns were hung “One if by land, Two if by sea”.

Paul Revere’s kitchen.

Eric gets a balloon hat outside of Faneuil Hall.

Painting of the Daniel Webster’s speech to Congress which hangs inside Faneuil Hall.

Eric in front of a Triceratops at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

Eric and Julia in front of a pre-historic sea monster.

The Mapparium.

Eric in front of the Pacific Tidal Pool at the Aquarium.

Friday evening the weather was moderate and so K and Eric strapped on their skis to play in the pasture. We still have a lot of snow. I stitched together this mosaic to show the snow in our pasture.

The snow was quite crusty and Eric hasn’t quite gotten the knack of always staying crouched over his skis. So there was a lot of this.

Sometimes leading to this…..

But there was a lot of enthusiasm and also a lot of this…

K just cruised around.

Saturday Kathryn went to the baby shower for Molly Marie. Mark took a great picture of my Mom holding her great grand child. I robbed the picture from Hay Dayz but I wanted a picture for myself because it captured the joy my Mom experiences when she ‘gets her mitts’ on a baby.

While K was at the shower Eric entertained Trevor. The boys played together quite awhile and in the afternoon we all went across the road to play ‘ManTracker’ in the woods. The boys would run ahead and leave tracks in the snow. When I would get close to catching them they would yell ‘Camping’ and declare we all camp out until they were rested enough to take off again.

Sunday Eric attended a birthday party for a classmate, Mitchell, at ADK Lanes. Eric bowled a 93 with bumpers.

Monday K departed for Rochester and I met Eric as he got off the bus. With temperatures in the 50s we had to play outside. I unloaded the six 50 lb bags of play sand I had as ballast in the trunk of my Volvo into his sand box and we played in the sand for 90 minutes. Unusual for March.

Eric has been reporting that his ears are popping frequently, so hopefully the medicine is working and his eustacian tubes are getting cleared out.

Tonight we pulled a repeat in the sand box – just not as long.

This past weekend we had three consecutive days of 40 degrees, a little sunshine,  and a little rain.  We lost a lot of snow.  We went from having a snow pack/ice driveway to bareground.  All the snow is off the deck.  The snow melted off the roof.  When I pull out of the driveway I can now see over the snow banks and view oncoming traffic.  Having said that we still have a foot of snow laying on the lawn and more in the woods.

Saturday morning Eric and I were early risers and donned our swimsuits to hang out in the hot tub where we heard Canada Geese and red wing black birds.

Saturday Eric and Kathryn went to the re-scheduled Wolverines Ski club meeting, but no other kids showed up so Kathryn and Eric skied on their own.  Saturday night we went shopping for a birthday present for a party Eric is invited to and we swung by Best Buy and bought a Nintendo DS game as a reward for Eric’s 20 consecutive ‘good night’ stickers.

Sunday Eric’s pal Janero came over to play and we ended up snowshoeing in the woods across the road.  It was Janero’s 1st time on snowshoes.  Having recently watched ManTracker we re-enacted a ManTracker scenario with the boys hiding behind trees and making an ‘overnight camp’.  Of course the game was forgotten when we reached running water and the boys could throw snowballs into the stream and watch them come tumbling downstream.

We completed our loop with only a couple of mishaps.  I stepped into a soft snow drift,  sunk in thigh deep and struggled to free my foot and snowshoe while the boys laughed at my antics.  They each lost a snowshoe and boot to deep snow as well.

Mark and Danielle had their baby girl Molly Marie Hay 7:15pm on Saturday. She weighed 8 pounds and was 19 1/2 inches and supposedly has lots of hair – although one can not tell from the pictures.

This weekend Eric and Kathryn went XC skiing on the freshly groomed trails at Egypt Hill. Eric has been part of the Wolverine Ski club for 6 weeks and his ski skills are advancing rapidly. Kathryn says he can do things after 6 lessons that she can not. Of course, being a flexible 6 year old with no fear of falling helps.

Eric thought the view from the ski trail was awesome.

The nice thing about Egypt Hill is that it has enough hills to be entertaining.

Eric climbing one of the hills.

While Eric and Kathryn were skiing Skip and I (and Scout) took a snowshoe hike into Hinkley Lake. We were scouting the state land for a possible camping areas. We drove to Grant and stopped along the seasonal Stormy Hill Road. At this time of year Stormy Hill Road is used nearly exclusively by snowmobiles. We hiked along the road until we turned east along the abandoned access road which is shown on the map below.

Scout was great on the hike. She stayed close, didn’t walk on our snowshoes and would exit the trail to sit whenever snowmobiles came near.

Part of the woods we traveled through were DEC re-forestation efforts the rest was a nice mix of hardwoods.

We finally ended up on the point overlooking Hinckley Reservoir. It was very windy and blowing into our faces so our pause was brief.

We went back across Hinckley coming out at the picnic grounds and returning to our car.

We got Eric’s report card on Friday and he is tearing up kindergarten.  I know, everyone brags on their kids and he has an age advantage over most of his peers, but right now it is a nice experience.  He gets a small weekly allowance for doing good in school, but this deserved a cash bonus – which he immediately decided to spend on additional Pokemon cards.  So Kathryn took Eric and his buddy Trevor (who appartently also got a report card bonus) to Toys-R-Us to spend their loot and afterwards to McDonalds.  A 6 year olds dream night out.

Saturday we went to the grand opening of the Holland Patent Ice Skating Rink.  The town permitted flooding of a portion of the town park and a very smooth, but sloped ice rink was made available for the public.  The grand opening included music, coffee and hot chocolate, and loaner skates for kids that didn’t have ice skates.  The weather was warm and there was a big turn out.  Kathryn assisted Eric as he slid around on skates for 45 minutes.

Saturday night Skip hosted a group of snow shoers and XC skiers as they took advantage of the full moon to cruise the Greenbelt Trail.  It was slow as a group of XC waited on a the following snowshoers, but the weather was mild.   Eric enjoyed skiing at night with a headlamp.  Afterwards everyone convened at Skip’s house for Kathryn’s home made seafood chowder (delish!) and snacks.

I have been battling bronchitis for 10 days and finally made it to the Doctor’s for prescription medicine.  The shotgun approach was prescribed including an antibiotic, steroids and an inhaler with alburaral. After a couple of days I am feeling better already.

Painter, the baby painted turtle, was confined to a large tub in the basement where he happily dug into the mud and hibernated until this past week.  The mud in his tub dried up and he awoke to investigate the problem.  After re-hydrating his ‘pond’ and covering him with a damp cloth Painter dug in somewhat and went back to his snooze.  We will continue to monitor his slumber and plan for his move to warmer floors within the house.