A Hiking We will Go

Last week at the grocery store Chloe wanted me to buy her trail mix. 'Will you be hiking on a trail?" I asked her. "Otherwise trail mix is just an M and M delivery device." She said she would, so today I decided to take her up on her word. It has been raining so often we are starting to grow gills. This morning the sun was shining. Although it is suppose to rain this afternoon, tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday... you get the idea. So I took the kids over to a small hiking area owned by the Diocese of Burlington. It is free to go and walk on their trails and all they ask is that you register with them for the season before you go. The trails are shady and largely flat with some nice overlooks to the lake. There is also a bridge that crosses the bike path that we ride under a lot so the kids were excited to see it from the top.

Since it had been so rainy I had them wear their rain boots. This turned out to a a pretty good plan as a lot of the trails were very mucky.

They came across some animal tracks they wanted to document.

They are thinking raccoon.

As you can see operation bait them with trail mix worked pretty well.

Alexa found herself a walking stick of sorts, although it was a bit short.

We had to walk across some boards that the water literally came up around your feet as you stepped on them. They thought this was a lot of fun. It was all going pretty well until Chloe started to get a blister from her boots. She was pretty grumpy about the whole thing. In fact she told me she was falling behind and would be eaten by the wolves. I was unaware that this was a big threat in Vermont, however I told her that I would take her picture to have documentation to show people what she looked like before the wolves carried her off.

This went over well as you might be able to tell  from the facial expression.

Flooding

This week has been a series of hot muggy days followed by afternoon thunderstorms. Yesterday was no exception. Although the storm yesterday was far more intense than the other have been so far. I heard one unofficial report from a friend with a rain gauge that we got three inches in an hour. That seems about right. We lost power here at my house too. I took some pictures of the aftermath. The street was entirely flooded. The girl down the street was racing up and down and reported that the cross street had water up to her knees. She is eight so take that height adjustment into consideration, but still it was pretty intense for a while here.

I had just redone this garden area. Last time I put flower seeds down and we had a big rain and most of them were swept into the street. I redid it and put grass seed down figuring it would just be easier. I am not sure how much grass seed is left. I think most of it washed down the street again.

Apparently there are more storms forecast for today with another 1-2 inches of rain possible. We may need the beach floaties in the backyard soon.

To the Beach...

This is one of those posts that soon my sister will start to hate me for. So before I start I want to remind everyone today is SUNDAY. Some where last summer my sister threatened my person if I posted one more day at the beach while she was working. But it is OK today was a weekend. It was our first trip to Leddy Beach this summer. It was a bit of a risk since it was 85 but forcasting scattered thunderstorms for the afternoon. There were some too, but we got in a few hours of water before we had to leave.

At first we had some pretty good waves for the lake. The kids were enjoying them.

There was Alexa the mermaid...

 

Chloe's sand drawings...

And I loved this, how many floaties can you wear in a foot of water?

First Day of Summer

We biked ourselves to North Beach today. It was a great way to spend the first day of summer. We were not really prepared for swimming. So the kids did a lot of wading and some sand playing.

I have to say the water was not quite as cold as I expected, and this early in the year on a  week day the beach was pretty empty.

Alexa took to stuffing her dress into her leggings. Quite a fetching look to say the least...

Summer Vacation Day One

Today was the first day of our summer vacation. We slept in. It was wonderful. No getting up and starting to morning routines to get the kids to the sitter. No rushing. Today we got up and made pancakes. We pumped up the bike tires and went for a bike ride. We paced ourselves. It was the first trip out since last year. Best not to over do it on day one. We covered about seven miles today. We broke up the riding with a stop at some of our favorite places. The swings at Waterfront Park. There are lots of open ones on a Wednesday morning.

Happy summer.

Recital Time

It is that time of year again when Alexa's dance classes come to a close, and we trek to the high school to see the recital. I took some of these pictures on Friday at the dress rehearsal as we are not suppose to take any during the performance. This one is from the recital today backstage. The tap routine was to the song "You Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story. They were dressed as little Jessie dolls from the movie.

These are from Friday...

I love the look on her face there trying to figure out what the directions are.

Here they were on Friday waiting to go on stage for their turn. There are a lot of little pink tutus there.

Our tradition after her recital is for me to give her a chocolate flower from Lake Champlain Chocolates. She sniffed it all the way home.