As I mentioned in yesterday’s very long post about the holiday weekend, I took a bunch of pictures of Brianna when she didn’t know I was even watching much less snapping away with my camera. It’s candid shots like these that are often priceless, or at least very entertaining.
All three kids were outside trying to decide what to do. I’m not quite sure what Gaige had in mind. Joey wanted to play cops and robbers. The stick you’ll see in his hand is a fake gun. Imagine him walking around saying, “My kill bad guys.”
Brianna obviously wanted to dance. And dance she did.
Watch those facial expressions closely. The last shot you’ll see is her slinking away after she saw her Mom and I watching/snapping pictures.
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The kids disappeared from just outside the kitchen window shortly thereafter. When I walked outside to see what they were doing, this is what I saw…
It was getting to be early evening by then which is why the image is so blurry (not enough light). But the intent expressions on their faces just makes me smile.
Amy and the kids spent the weekend with us at the WV place. Klondike, their very large, white German Shepherd came along, too.
This post is probably WAY too long for most readers, but I have lots of pics to share. If nothing else, just scroll through and look at the images. Be sure to click on each if you’d like to see a better (larger) picture.
The only big plan for the weekend was for all of us to do a bike ride on the C & O Canal. So one of the first things Hubby had to do on Saturday was install the bike seat on Amy’s bike. He put one on his bike, too, so they could trade off if necessary.
Brianna and Gaige can ride their own bikes. But Joey is too little to be able to keep up with all of us, hence the bike seat.
Saturday was pretty hot, and we needed to do some shopping, so we decided to wait until Sunday for the bike ride.
We all sort of just goofed around on Saturday morning. The kids spent most of that time outside playing. The dogs did, too. Our girls were a bad influence on Klondike.
Amy and I walked Joey down the driveway. I asked him to pose on the little bridge Hubby made for me years ago for my pond. Since I no longer have a pond, I was quite happy to put the bride to use at the WV place.
Joey thinks the new gate is lots of fun. It was Amy’s idea to have him climb behind the sign. Check out the dirt on his legs!
Brianna and Gaige were off “having an adventure.” They were exploring the woods around the house. When I told them not to touch any dead stuff they might find laying around, I think they thought I was kidding. Thank goodness they listened because they found the source of all the bones the girls have been finding over the last few months.
Joey, being a boy, loves seeing Pop and G’s motorcycles. Pop started his up, sat Joey on the seat and let him rev the engines. That’s no “cheese” grin in the picture below. That’s a “look-I’m-riding-Pop’s-motorcycle” smile.
Gaige and Brianna were having a blast exploring our woods. I don’t know how many times they went down the very steep hill behind our house, which they then had to climb back up. Far too many times to count, that’s for sure.
That’s one of the reasons I have far more shots of Joey. Brianna and Gaige just didn’t sit still long enough. And remember that bike ride we were planning? It didn’t happen. Not for Joey and I anyway. He woke up with a fever that had him feeling really crappy. Once he had medication in him, he felt much better, but as soon as the medication started to wear off he’d feel bad again. So he and I stayed at the cabin while Hubby and Amy took the older kids for a ride. Hubby took my point-and-shoot camera along, too, and did manage to capture a few good shots for me.
After the ride Brianna and I had back in April, the kids were REALLY looking forward to this trip. Amy was, too. They aren’t able to get out riding much at home.
Meanwhile, back at the cabin… with a fresh dose of medication in his system, Joey was ready to roll.
After riding for a little while, we took a cookie break then Joey got to play in some water. That’s an activity Amy thought he’d enjoy. She was so right, as usual. He sat there for about an hour and a half, happy as could be, making soup. What kind of soup? When I asked him, he thought about it a bit, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Regular soup.”
Soup making is messy business. I had to hang Joey’s shorts outside to dry while he napped.
Speaking of naptime, look what showed up outside our kitchen window while Joey was sleeping and everyone else was still away.
The Pileated Woodpecker, which is about as big as a Crow, is the largest woodpecker in almost all of North America.
Pileated Woodpeckers are extremely skittish/bashful, so this is the first time I have ever gotten a decent shot of one after five years of our living in the woods.
After the bike ride, Gaige and Brianna were more than happy to take over the water play. Joey was back in the house. His fever kicked back in while he was napping, but Amy returned literally just as he was waking up and gave him some more medicine.
After they tired of that activity, they tossed the football around for a while.
I’m not saying this because Gaige is my grandson. I’m saying this because it’s a fact. Gaige, at age 6, throws the football amazingly well. See his fingers perfectly aligned on the stitches? You should see the spiral this kid lays on the ball. And he throws it in a very purposeful, practiced arc right to his target. I was quite impressed. Really. I have never seen a six-year-old throw a football with such precision.
I could barely throw a Nerf football at his age. Granted, the ball he was using isn’t full size, but it is definitely larger and harder to manage than a Nerf ball would have been.
I have no idea how well he catches because Brianna can’t throw a football very well at all and I was too busy cooking dinner at the time to play with him.
By the end of the day, even the dogs were exhausted.
Sunday was a long day, but we still managed to squeeze in a campfire. I don’t have any pictures of that, you’ll just have to trust me. As warm as it was, I didn’t really want a campfire, but the kids would have been so disappointed had we not had one. During Brianna’s last visit, there was a statewide burn ban on, so we couldn’t have a fire.
By Monday afternoon, it was time for Amy and the kids to pack up and head back to civilization. It really was a great weekend. But it went by FAR too fast. Hubby and I are already looking forward to their next visit.
I actually have quite a few more pictures of Brianna that I took while she didn’t know I was watching. While Gaige and Joey were playing, she was dancing. It was hysterical. I’ll try to get those pics into a slideshow and posted tomorrow for your viewing pleasure. 🙂
Remember the lovely ALCs I posted about? Well, Saturday with temperatures in the 60s and LOTS of wind, I actually strapped those bad boys on and went riding. And you know what? They were awesome. Comfortable AND warm. I was very glad to have them.
While Hubby was busy installing our new water treatment system on Saturday, I went for a little ride. I did 113.5 miles total, which isn’t a lot, really. But I was gone for about 4 hours.
Why so long? Because I had my camera with me, silly!
So I was actually able to stop and take pictures of stuff like a pretty mountain lake, and a strange standalone silo, and a scared cow, and a country road, and…
Wait, wouldn’t it be more fun if I just showed you the pictures?
Remember, I was by myself and I didn’t take a tripod. It was windy, too. Far too windy to just sit my camera on a rock or something for a self-portrait. So no new shots of me looking bad-ass in my ALCs, but I did get some nice scenery pictures.
There’s this one country road I’ve been wanting to check out for a while. It’s impossible to tell on any of the maps whether it is gravel or not, so we hadn’t included it in any trips. But I’ve been wondering. So Saturday I headed for Wardensville, West Virginia and Trout Run Road.
Turns out, it was a great motorcycle road. Now if only it hadn’t been windy, I wouldn’t have had to worry about finding downed tree limbs around every blind curve. I never did encounter any really big limbs, and I got some nice pics, if I do say so myself.
If you followed the Trout Run Road map link, you’ll have seen that it runs through part of the George Washington National Forest. When I stumbled upon the Trout Run Campground, I just had to check it out. Why? Where there’s a campground, there are usually toilets. And a girl in the middle of the woods is ALWAYS happy to see one of those.
It was actually a cute campground. There’s a lake (pictured below), as well as a pond, which I never actually saw.
I was only at the campground briefly, but it really did seem like a nice spot. There’s a picnic area, playground and swimming beach in addition to the hiking trails, camping and fishing.
As you can see from the pictures, it was a pretty blue-sky-and-white-puffy-cloud-day. The wind made riding a bit uncomfortable, mainly because of all the pollen, dust, grass clippings, bugs, etc. blowing through the air and, in some cases, up my nose and/or in my eyes. But it was still a nice. day.
Amy asked if Hubby and I would keep the grandkids this weekend. We almost said no because there was a homeowners’ association meeting scheduled for the WV place that we needed to go to. We both knew there was NO WAY Gaige (6) and Joey (2.5) could sit through that.
After some thought, we decided I could come to WV and attend the HOA meeting with Brianna while Hubby stayed home in MD with Gaige and Joey. Oh yeah, and Klondike (who is quite a bit larger than our dogs).
Before the meeting, we went to McDonald’s for breakfast. One thing you forget when you don’t have kids around daily is how SLOWLY they eat. (About 1/4 of Brianna’s bacon, egg and cheese bagel went to the meeting with us.)
Asking a nine-year-old to sit quietly through an HOA meeting is asking a lot. Despite her having her iPOD (music and games), two chapter books and a word search puzzle book, I was really wondering if Brianna, a talking machine, would be able to make it through the meeting. She complained a little bit, but actually behaved amazingly well considering that most adults have a hard time staying awake, sitting still and keeping quiet during HOA meetings.
She was the only kid in attendance, of course, and the adults seemed tickled to have her there and chat with her. She told a couple of them we’d be going on a “Bike Hike” after the meeting. I corrected her several times explaining that we were going for a bike ride. I reminded her we would not be walking.
“Hiking is walking,” I said. “We’ll be riding our bikes. So quit calling it a bike hike.” (As an aside, she also told at least three people that her Aunt Shannon had had her ear bitten by a monkey.)
Not that long ago, Hubby and I biked a small segment of the C&O Canal between Oldtown, Maryland and Town Creek. I figured that after a 3-hour HOA meeting, Brianna would be ready to burn off some energy, so we brought her bike along. It really is a great place to ride.
Before we left for the canal, I showed her the piece of coal I’d found last time I was there. She was quite impressed. She asked if we could go find some coal for her. I told her it was a pretty far ride (just under 5 miles), but she was determined. She really liked my coal.
It had rained for a couple of hours in the morning and was supposed to rain again in the afternoon, but we decided to give it a go anyway. So after taking the dogs for a long walk, we headed for Oldtown.
It wasn’t as sunny as the last time I was there. It was cooler, too. But we still saw lots of different critters.
“I’m not driving you crazy stopping to point out all of the animals, am I?” I asked her. “No!” she assured me. “I love critters, too.”
That frog was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Brianna likes critters just about as much as I do (which I honestly never thought possible). So she was thrilled to see the various little critters we saw. And we really did see quite a variety. I took my zoom lens this time, so I was able to get some better turtle pics. She, too, was amazed at how many turtles are there.
About two miles into the ride, I realized we’d probably both have the energy to do the entire five miles. So I told her I thought we’d make it. She was thrilled. She really, really wanted some coal of her own. She kept saying stuff like, “I know that’s far, and we might be pretty tired. But if we say that’s our goal, and we just keep going no matter how tired we get, we’ll be able to make it.” I tell you, the girl is a talking machine. I found her little motivational speech to herself quite entertaining.
On the way to the canal, we’d discussed all of Brianna’s favorite colors. Teal is #1. Followed by light blue and dark blue. So she liked seeing the Virginia Bluebells that are still in bloom at various spots along the towpath.
The more we rode, the more critters we saw. We were having a great time. We’d gone about 4 miles when Brianna said, “This road is starting to feel funny.” She kept pushing, though, and talking about the wonderful coal we were going to find.
A couple of minutes later, however, we realized her bike had gotten a flat tire.
Crap.
We only had a couple of options at that point. Keep walking to Town Creek, stash her bike in the bushes then ride two-up the 5 miles back to Oldtown. Or turn around and walk back to where we’d left the truck.
“But, my coal,” she said. “We can’t abandon my goal.”
That’s when I told her we’d walk back to the truck and then drive to Town Creek to find her coal. “And,” I said, “if we don’t find any coal, you can have my piece, because by then you will certainly have earned it.” The whole time, I’m thinking we’re screwed. I mean, 4 miles is a long way for anyone to walk, much less a nine-year-old who had already biked that far. But we really didn’t have any choice, so we set off.
She did complain some, mainly about not achieving her goal. But we kept pushing. We were walking at a decent clip, too, spurred on by the sky that was growing increasingly dark with every passing second.
The good thing about walking was that we could look more closely for critters without having to worry about driving into the canal, which is how I noticed this big-ass snake sunning itself in a tree.
And this neat tree full of woodpecker holes. (We even saw a Pileated Woodpecker not far from our cabin on the way home later.)
This picture made me giggle every time I looked at it last night after we arrived back at the cabin. “You TOLD me to look sad!” she said every time I laughed. Which is true. I had. At the time, she’d asked me why. I told her we’d just trekked at least three miles, that it would be funny to make people think she was exhausted. That was MUCH easier than explaining that I wanted it for effect on my blog, which would only have spurred a gazillion questions like: what’s a blog? You have a blog? Why haven’t I ever seen your blog? Why do you need a blog? Are there other pictures of me there? Etc., etc., etc.
I took this picture of Brianna sitting on her bike just before we put the bikes into the truck. Does she look even slightly miserable/exhausted/hungry? She looks even happier in the next shot. Can you guess why? Just one, four-letter word is your answer…
Just as I’d promised, we drove to the Town Creek Aqueduct to find Brianna some coal. And because I remember weird stuff like exactly where I’d found some coal weeks prior, we hit the mother lode. She walked away with EIGHT pieces of coal. She was beyond thrilled. Until she realized, after settling into the truck with her coal lined-up on her lap, that there was a smallish-but-menacing black spider walking across the largest chunk. She didn’t shriek hysterically like most little girls would have, but she wasn’t thrilled either.
I calmly grabbed that particular piece (I was wearing my grandmother hat, remember)Â and tossed it out the window.
“No!” she said. “My coal!” (Who would’ve thought coal, COAL, would have inspired her so?)
“I just wanted to knock the spider off,” I told her after I’d retrieved her prize coal hunk. (Luckily we hadn’t started moving yet.)
It was at that point, by the way, that the rain started. At least our timing had worked out.
Since we hadn’t eaten lunch, we drove to Fort Ashby and had a pig-out dinner. Brianna had a cup of broccoli cheese soup, a salad, and chicken parmigiana with spaghetti. I had a cup of vegetable soup, meatloaf with french fries and cole slaw. She was quite tickled that the waitress was treating her like an adult. And an older couple at the next table were chit-chatting with us throughout the meal. They were amazed not only by what she was eating, but by how much. She finished it all (we both saved a few bites for the dogs), so we topped the meal off with some yummy strawberry shortcake.
While eating, she informed me that she wanted to move to West Virginia with me, “Because people here really seem to like kids.”
Care to guess what her first order of business was upon arriving back at the cabin? Washing her coal.
After I fed the dogs, we took them for a short walk. Then we made a critter list, which Brianna was also quite proud of.
If you click on the picture, you should be able to read the list. After this picture was taken, we realized we’d forgotten to add the woodpecker.
Notice the coal reference?
Brianna insisted that she should take a picture of me, too. So here I am, looking lovely as usual.
At the end of our day, I told Brianna that “bike hike” was a pretty accurate way to describe our day after all.
And when I tucked her into bed (at 11:00 after two LONG games of Skip-Bo), I told her how proud I was of her for being such a good sport all day.
I’m already looking forward to our next ride, after I buy a tire repair kit, that is.
The skies were clear, the air was cool. Spring trees are still in bloom.
Flowering trees. New Growth everywhere. Peace. Quiet.
I just love living in the middle of the woods.
Temps were a little cool for a motorcycle ride. We could’ve maybe done a bicycle ride, but we had to unclog a culvert instead. Fun, right?
“Fun” is not always about what you’re doing, or where you are doing it, but about who you are doing it with.
Of course there are no pictures of me working, though I did help. Really. It was my job moving the muck Hubby dragged out of the pipe.
“Fun” might not be the right word to describe the endeavor, but it was still a good day. Because we were together. And togetherness is especially important when it’s your 17th wedding anniversary.
The only thing that might’ve made it better would have been to have some kids or grandkids around. At least we have our furkids.
We capped the day off with a drive to our favorite Hampshire County restaurant, El Puente in Capon Bridge.
It really was a LOVEly day.
Our 17th anniversary.
Wow.
Time really does fly.
We’re both thankful for all the good times we’ve shared over the past 17 years and look forward to more togetherness in the future.
Five years ago, our WV place looked quite a bit different. Of course, in late 2004 when we bought the place it was just another patch of woods. It wasn’t until late-May of 2005 that the land was cleared. Over the next four years, we spent many weekends here working. We did most of the work ourselves, with a little help from family and friends.
One thing we did not do was clear the land. In fact, we hired a local excavator to clear the site, fashion us a serviceable driveway and install the septic system.
And you know what? He did a fabulous job.
So fabulous, in fact, that the “serviceable” driveway only last year was showing signs of wear. It was mainly water ruts, which are not uncommon when you have a gravel driveway going down a relatively steep hill.
Now that five years have passed, we figured it was time to get the driveway touched up a bit. We also wanted some gravel spread around the house and some slight leveling and back-filling. While he was here, we figured we’d get him to install a gate. And since the bulldozer would be here on site, I asked him to make my fire pit wider, too.
Here’s what the place looks like now… (click on each thumbnail image for a better view)
It’s sure come a long way in five years. Now, when we come here, we’re not coming to a construction site, we’re coming home.
I’m not sure who like it here most, the people or the dogs. But it is safe to say we all really enjoy our little place in the woods. We’re all looking forward to warmer weather when friends and family will come to visit and enjoy our little piece of Heaven, too.