Snowshoe Adventure

For Presidents' Day our family (with some friends from Scott's lab) went on a snowshoe adventure. I call it an adventure not because anything particularly eventful happened, but because I am happy to finally have something interesting that we did to post (although, it is possible that few readers will go so far as to call this post interesting), rather than just the day-to-day domestic affairs of the Hales.

We went to Gold Creek Basin just past Snoqualmie Pass and Susanna had a great time as long as we kept moving; she particularly enjoyed her ride in the backpack when Scott ran down hills (pictured). The other picture (aside from the scenery shot) is of Susanna feeding me a cracker when we stopped for a snack.

A big purple dinosaur?

I'm not really a Barney fan (you know Barney, the big purple dinosaur), so when Susanna decided she wanted to take a Barney board book home from the library, I tossed it back into the board book bin and showed her all the superior books that I had already selected (ones by Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss and the like). But Susanna did not see the higher value that was so clear to me in the other books-- at least not enough to give up on Barney-- so after a few more fruitless attempts on my part, Barney came home with us. I couldn't even hide it away in the to-be-returned-to-the-library stack of books after we got home because, after somehow discovering what the dinosaur's name is, she started walking around the house looking for it, "ba-bi, wah-oo?" (Barney, where are you?). So I have given in and Barney is now a part of our lives. I read it to her, she reads it to us, and then she reads to her baby-doll or her shape sorter or who- (or what-) ever wants to hear about a big purple dinosaur who loves everyone (how does that song go?).

Let me also take this opportunity to apologize to the library for Susanna's tearing half of the front cover image off of the book. I will tape it back on and try to make it look as un-ruined as possible.

Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Last week (Jan 29 through Feb 3) I went to Portland to watch my nieces and nephew while their parents were out of town. Susanna of course went with me and had a fabulous time with her cousins, one of whom is but 6 weeks younger than my little darling. Susanna showered affection in the form of hugs, kisses, and pokes (especially to the eye) on her, more than I think poor little Jayne could handle, and still talks about her and the other cousins constantly. Scott joined us toward the end of the adventure (and it was an adventure); I was grateful he could make it. This photograph (taken with my sister-in-law's phone) is of the three girl cousins jumping on the bed while the nephew, poor guy, was at school.