Waste not a Winter Weekend

 It was the kind of weather, that let you know it was still winter, but showed the promise of spring.  The air was cold, the sun had some heat in it.  We are closing in on the changing of the seasons and as exciting as that is, I still found myself pushing the outside to cough up the last of a winter of activities.  Friday night was chill in a different sense.  We grocery shopped to get clear time for fun on Saturday.  Packed ourselves at a Mexican restaurant and then camped out in the living room.  Saturday we were up early for Merrick's soccer.  Sophia skipped the practice this week and decided to stay home and work on homework and her new chore, folding laundry.  She did amazing, and when Merrick and I got home she had baskets loaded and the music bumping in the basement.  Ear to Ear grin of self-pride from a job well done.  A quick lunch and then we headed to the hills with sleds in tow to meet some friends on the snowy slopes.  One of the sleds we took was making its debut, having been a gift to Merrick two years ago.

 The sled reminded us of how little snow we have had in the past two years.  The hill gave up plenty of smiles and emptied our bellies for an evening of pizza and socializing.  Sunday was bright, sunny and clear, but still pretty cool.  We bundled up anyways and headed to a nearby nature area for a marsh hike in the phragmites as well as the some animal track identification in the more open areas of the oak woods. We easily identified deer, mouse and rabbit tracks with a plethora of squirrel trails looking for the last of the past year's acorns in the thinning snow.  We played around on the ice rink for a while, until some hockey players showed up to knock the puck around and ended the morning outing with some snowball fights on a large parking lot plow mark. A little lunch and some recharging back at the house for all.  Merrick and I played some slow bluegrass riffs before we were off to our next outdoor adventure.We headed south in the early afternoon to meet some more friends for some cross country skiing.  The trails proved to be very ice and I crashed more times than I can count, although
 Sophia can likely recall as she was embarrassed at my performance.  She asked how long I had been skiing and I told her I just started this year same as her. 
Her response belied her embarrassment "It shows!"  Four little ones on icy trails means we don't cover much ground.  Actually the adults ended up carrying the littlest ones skis while they found it was easier to walk on the icy trails than ski. It takes a lot of pizza to sustain our outdoor bellies, and we soon headed back to their house for another sustaining dose of pizza.  The kids played doll house and hide-n-seek, before we loaded up and headed north back to the reality of a week of work and school to come.