I sit typing this post early in the morning, while the kids are asleep, the sky is dark and rain is pouring down outside – it’s definitely back to reality for me.  But as I ease back into schedules, routines and to-do lists, I’ll be hanging onto the memories of a sun-drenched weekend with family and friends, up in upstate New York.

We arrived at my parents’ house outside of Albany on the Thursday before the Fourth.  The original plan had been to travel on Friday, but Steve had a work deadline that meant he would need to be at his computer all day on Friday and couldn’t spend seven hours driving.  So rather than miss out on plans we had already made, we pushed our travel day up and extended our trip.  Steve and I both fired up our computers and got to work on Thursday, while the kids settled right down to the business of vacation.

They discovered Nana’s garden hose and shenanigans obviously happened as a result.

Someone was still loving on his belly button…

Friday was more of the same – work for the parents; fun for the kids.  The grandparents took them to a small local amusement park and playground for the morning while Steve and I typed away at our computers.  Our weekend started in earnest at 5:00 on Friday afternoon, when we all headed over to the home of some family friends for a cookout.  It was my favorite group of “framily” – friends who are like family to us – my parents’ closest friends, who hosted, and my high school best friend and her family.  Love them all so much!  All the kids had a blast playing (in the super-not-babyproofed house!) and the adults ate delicious food, drank rosé, and got all caught up.  We heard all the details about upcoming weddings and trips to Disney, and shared what we’ve been up to in D.C.  I took plenty of pictures (of course!) but won’t share them here – they’re destined for my private family album.

Saturday and Sunday were set aside for hiking and we had fun and exciting hikes both days.  Both hikes deserve their own posts, so I’ll save those details for later this month and skip right to Monday.  For the Fourth of July, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than the lake!

I tell Steve I have one requirement, and only one requirement, for the Fourth – spend it near water.  I don’t need a cookout, fireworks, funny sunglasses or anything else, as long as there’s water.  In Buffalo we usually went to Canalside, which was fun, but never quite satisfying because we never actually got on the water – just stood and looked longingly at Buffalo Harbor Kayak.  The lake is a different story.

For those who don’t know, my parents, aunt and uncle all have adjoining lakefront properties on one of the Adirondack lakes.  I’ve been coming here since before I can remember, and it’s like a second home.  These days I try to make the trip at least once a year – it’s not easy to get here, living so far away as D.C. (or Buffalo, for that matter).  Last weekend was probably our only trip to the lake for the year.  Happy to be here!

My cousin Jocelyn came, too, and brought her dog Max – much to Peanut’s delight and Nugget’s concern.  My grandmother was there as well, and our family friends – what a reunion!

Peanut did some fishing for landsharks with her new fishing rod (note: she is wearing my hat).  Nugget has one too, which will be important later.

Obviously, if it’s at all possible to sail, we sail!  My dad made sure the boat was in the water in time for our visit, and we had a fabulously windy day on Monday, so a sail was clearly in order.  The crew included our friend Michael, my cousin Jocelyn, my dad, Steve and me and the kids.  Don’t worry – we’ve fit more than that on the boat.

Family boat selfie!  Only half of Mom’s face, but Peanut is actually looking at the camera and smiling.  IT’S AN INDEPENDENCE DAY MIRACLE.

The kids settled in and enjoyed a boat snack, which clearly had to be Pirate’s Booty.

Jocelyn sat in my favorite spot.

And the wind really picked up!  We sailed on the jib for a little while because it was actually a very breezy day and we didn’t want to keel too much with the littles on board.  Eventually we decided to raise the main, too, and we really started moving then.

I think certain people really enjoyed their first sail.  Of course, neither one of them can quite hang.  So this inevitably happened:

What a great sail, though.  I was so glad that I got out on the boat at least once this season.  When I was growing up, we sailed almost every weekend – summer doesn’t feel quite the same without that wind and water.

Back on shore, Nugget woke up (grouchy) and after he recovered from the shock of his boat nap ending, he had some fun waving a mini American flag around.

And we enjoyed drinks and happy hour, courtesy of our family friend Denise (who is an incredible cook).  I think I may have single-handedly eaten a third of the shrimp salad on endive leaves.  Oh, yeah, and Peanut took credit for the food.  She flung her arms wide and declared, “ENJOY this FEAST I have prepared!  I gardened the green parts myself!”  Ha!  A cookout followed, but I was too busy eating to snap pictures.

End of a beautiful day on the water.  What more could you ask for?

On the Fourth itself, we were obviously back at the lake.  I was trying to herd everyone out the door immediately after breakfast, but it actually ended up being closer to lunch.  Oh, well!  We got there eventually and immediately got down to the business of having fun.  Nugget stuck his feet in the lake.

And then he did some fishing of his own.  And by fishing, I mean attacking bubbles with his BB-8 fishing rod.  No shame, you guys.

The lake is still pretty chilly, so we inflated a baby pool and my mom and I took turns hauling buckets of water up from the lake to fill it.  Nugget was READY to go in that empty pool.

I made the kids promise to give me my annual Fourth of July gift: a cute picture of them looking at the camera and smiling.  They did promise, but then they tried to flake on me.  Oh, no…

Nugget, look over here.

Getting closer…

Called it good.  They both look kind of insane, but what can you do?  They are insane.

We had a much calmer day on the Fourth, so instead of sailing, I checked off the last thing on my Fourth of July to-do list: kayaking.

I am an avid kayaker, and I used to be out on the water paddling my little red kayak all the time.  Like with many other things, kids changed that for me and I haven’t been able to get out much recently.  My parents have had custody of my kayak for years and I am glad they’ve been enjoying it, but I sure do miss it.  When I saw how calm the water was, I immediately asked my dad to launch my kayak.

That’s what I’m talking about.

I paddled down to the end of our bay and then circled back to see about picking up a passenger.  Nugget had burst into tears when he saw me drifting off, so I thought he may like to join me for a little while.

(Note: I think that before taking young kids out in any boat, including a kayak, you need to know the kid and know yourself.  I am an experienced kayaker and Nugget is a good listener, and I felt comfortable with the idea of having him out on the water with me.  So did Steve, obviously.  I wouldn’t take either of the kids out in a canoe, where they’d have more room to roam and stand up, but with twenty years of paddling experience I felt that Nugget was perfectly safe on my lap.  But I actually did a ton of research about the appropriate age to introduce a kid to a kayak before letting him in there with me!)

Someone else wanted a turn, too!  Funnily enough, I was more nervous about having Peanut on the kayak than I was about Nugget.  Nugget at two is actually a better listener than Peanut at almost-five, and while I trust my own abilities, I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted her to follow my directions and not goof off.  We did have a talk about not leaning over the side (I don’t care if Moana does it) but after that, she was really good.  I ended up giving both kids two rides, and I’m so glad to know that they can go paddling with me now!  I don’t know if it will be an option in D.C. (the water on the Potomac can be a little rough, and I don’t know if I can take them out in a rental) but at least we’ve done it once and established that it’s possible.

Back on shore, Nugget wanted to play “Maui.”

He also asked to go SUPing.  (He was very particular about the paddles – only wanted to use the SUP paddle on the SUP, and insisted on holding the kayak paddle while sitting in the kayak.)

We finished the day with an early cookout and drove back to my parents’ house as the sun was setting, knowing we had an early day the next day – and by 4:30 the following morning, we were on the road back to D.C.  It was a warm, sunny, happy weekend and I know we’re all going to cherish the memories we made for a long time.

Happy (belated) Independence Day!  How did you spend your Fourth?

When I think back on the fondest memories I have of my childhood, the vast majority of them took place outdoors.  I could almost convince myself that I lived outdoors as a kid.  Like any active, sporty family, we had our favorite fresh-air pursuits.  While we did our share of hiking, I wouldn’t say that we spent an inordinate amount of time on the trails.  Summer and warm fall days found us, instead, on the water – sailing, canoeing and kayaking, mostly, with occasional motorboat jaunts, and my dad was never far from another spin on his windsurfer.  In the winter, we skied.  Downhill, mainly, but also cross-country just to mix it up.  Hiking was lower on the list, although I think we all enjoyed it.

Now that we’re grown-ups (well…) my brother Dan and I have both become avid hikers – even more than we were.  He’s trekking the Colorado wilderness with his wife, while I’m traversing heritage Virginia rail trails with my family, but we’re both out there, and I am sure that the legacy my parents gave us – the love of nature and the outdoors, the satisfaction of pushing boundaries, and the thrill of adventuring in the wide world – has a lot to do with that.

Just as my brother has his adventure buddy – my dear sister-in-law Danielle – I have mine in Steve.  Some of our earliest dates involved exploring the footpaths and waterfalls around the Cornell campus.  On our third date, we drove out to Buttermilk Falls State Park, where we hiked to the namesake falls and I claimed an enormous pink boulder for France.  It was a fun date, and also an important one, because I don’t know what I would have done if it had turned out that he didn’t like to go outside and play.  As our relationship developed, so did our hiking haunts.  I showed him around my beloved North Campus – taught him to play shoe golf (best game ever) at the Cornell plantations, introduced him to the best bridge-jumping spot (he didn’t jump) and slid with him down miniature waterfalls just upstream.  Of course, you know how the story ends.  We got married, took our hiking farther afield (to England and Scotland!) and eventually, found ourselves with two little trail tots.

I hiked during both pregnancies.  With Peanut, at least until ish got real at the end, I was on the trails most weekends (and inevitably fell asleep in the car on the way home).  I pushed even harder while pregnant with Nugget – sometimes unwittingly.  The picture above?  Snapped by a summit steward atop Cascade Mountain, our first Adirondack high peak, two days into my second pregnancy (and totally oblivious to the stowaway).

^Another family-of-four picture, this one snapped at Letchworth State Park – photo credit to my dear friend Zan.  Nine weeks pregnant and feeling sorry that Nugget had such a boring view while the rest of us enjoyed gorges and waterfalls.

When I think about the childhood I want to give my kids, I think about a childhood like mine – one lived outdoors as much as (maybe more than) in.  I think about fostering a deep respect for the planet, a commitment to protect and preserve our wild spaces and the creatures who share the earth with us.  I think about their sense of wonder, their marveling at the miracle of nature.

And the way I am fostering that appreciation is to give them the gift of a childhood on the trails and on the water.

In a very real sense, Peanut and Nugget are growing up in the woods.  They’ve been living on hiking trails since they were both tiny babies – starting in the Bjorn (Peanut) and the Ergo (Nugget) and eventually graduating to a Deuter KidComfort III and an Osprey Poco Plus, respectively.  Peanut spent her babyhood at Great Falls and Rock Creek Park; Nugget spent his at Knox Farm.  I want both of them to grow up with those same memories – of playing and exploring with their parents – that I did.

I’ll be the first to admit that my wanting to raise my kids outdoors is at least partially selfish.  I love the outdoors, and I dearly miss some of the active pursuits I used to enjoy before the kids came along.  I have been an avid kayaker since I was fifteen, and have had few opportunities to get out and paddle in recent years.  (The four hours I spent cruising around Lake George with my friend Seth last summer just served as a reminder of how much I miss paddling.)  And every winter I mourn all the skiing I’m not doing.  So, yeah, I hope they love this stuff because I love it and I miss it and I cherish the hope of one day paddling Blackwater or Smith Mountain Lake, sailing the Chesapeake, exploring the Blue Ridge, and sliding down the West Virginia ski slopes with them.  And more, and bigger – I want them to know my home mountain range as well as I do.  I want them by my side when I finally explore the national parks of the West.  I want to put my arm around Peanut as we watch the sun rise from a Hawaiian volcano, to high-five Nugget after a day of paddling kayaks and spotting marine life in the Pacific Northwest, to see the wonder on both of their faces during an African safari.  If I have it my way – and Steve has it his way – they’ll grow up as true adventure kids.

They’re little now, and we’re keeping our expectations down.  A short, flat trail sounds about right for our current stage of life.  Bonus points for spotting birdies.  (Relax, Nugget, Great Blue Herons don’t eat little boys.)  Next summer, we might be down to just Nugget in a backpack, while Peanut runs alongside us with her own little pack.  Before I know it, they’ll be paddling and sailing and skiing with us.

I’m doing my best to enjoy each moment as it comes.  To cherish the memories we make now, and not to get too hung up on the stuff that we used to do, that’s beyond our capabilities at the moment.  I’m taking grown-up adventures as they come, and not sweating it if the biggest adventure on a weekend hike is a diaper changed trailside.  Because I know that it’s just a few tomorrows until they can keep up with me and be true adventure buddies – if I haven’t ruined the whole experience by placing too many expectations on them too soon.  And I also know that the memories they are making on these trails – even now, at four and two – are setting them up for a lifetime of adventure in the great big world, and I hope that someday they look back on our family hikes as a cherished gift, and a gift that they’ll pass on to their own children.

It’s only April, and already the garden has been a bit of a comedy of errors – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Peanut and I were both chomping at the bit to start our garden this year.  We planted a garden two springs ago, as a fun way to get in some one-on-one mother/daughter time with a new baby in the house.  It was fun, and we got a decent amount of food out of it – quite a few salads and lots of herbs, although the tomatoes struggled and then were all eaten by backyard pests once they’d finally sprouted.  Last spring, we were living in temporary housing while we planned our move back home, and planting a garden – even a container garden – just wasn’t in the cards.  Peanut didn’t say much about it, but I know she was disappointed.  So this year, she was doubly excited when I asked her if she wanted to garden with Mommy again.

As soon as the calendar turned to March, she started begging to get plants for the garden.  I wasn’t sure when would be the right time, so I did a little research and concluded that by mid-March, if the weather was looking good, we should be fine to get plants into pots.  Clearly, I was wrong, because we visited multiple nurseries in search of tomatoes, basil, etc. – and everyone looked at me as if I’d sprouted another head when I asked where the edible plants were.  We finally found a few things – some sugar snap peas, cold weather lettuce, and rosemary – at Holly, Woods & Vines down by our old house.  I snapped them up because if we left another greenhouse empty handed, Peanut was going to lose her mind.  We’ll supplement in a little bit, when the warmer weather plants are out.  (Please ignore the pink-haired mermaid photobomb above.)

We got home and got ready to plant.  Steve had nicely prepared the pots earlier in the week, setting them out in the sunniest spot on our back patio and filling them with mulch and then topsoil.  My little gardener and her mermaid were ready to get their hands dirty!

Since the plants we came home with weren’t the plants I was intending to come home with, I did some fast thinking about what should go where.  First thing into the soil was rosemary – the only herb available so early in the season – in the smallest pot.

(Don’t mind the big red splotch on Peanut’s fleece.  That’s her school jacket and it has the school crest embroidered on it.  It was hard to see in pictures but still, I don’t plan to announce to the entire internet where my kid can be found during the day.  Since my photo-editing skills are basically limited to zoom, crop and Instagram, it’s totally obvious that I scribbled over it in red “paint” – but whatever, it does the trick, right?)

Rosemary planted, it was time for the lettuce to go into the big pot.  It’s already pretty much doubled in size since we planted – we’ve had so much rain!  Can’t wait to start eating some backyard salads again.

Last pot – sugar snap peas.  I had no plans to plant peas, but like I said, we had to get something or Peanut would have lost it.  Now that we have them, I’m enjoying watching them curl their little tendrils up the tomato cage, and I hope that we get to enjoy some fresh peas all season long!

And – that’s it for now!  We gave everything a quick “welcome home” water with our new orange watering can and have just been having fun watching things grow and change ever since.  We might need to add a planter once we’re ready for tomatoes, but all in good time.

Anyone else get a ridiculously early start on planting this year?

Confession: I’m a total sucker for Facebook clickbait about fun things to do in northern Virginia.  I follow a bunch of NoVA tourism accounts and I can reliably be counted on to click every link that begins with a sentence like “7 THINGS EVERY VIRGINIAN MUST DO AT LEAST ONCE” or “TOP 10 BEST VIRGINIA TOWNS FOR SUMMER ADVENTURE.”  You get the picture.  Well, I guess it’s not clickbait if it actually leads to an amazing hike, right?  Because when the headline “VIRGINIA’S SECRET GARDEN TRAIL” popped up at me over the winter, obviously I clicked on it – and discovered a hidden gem.

Tucked away in Centreville, Virginia is Bull Run Regional Park.  And tucked away in Bull Run Regional Park is the Bluebell Loop Trail, which most of the year is just a nice pleasant meander through the woods, but which becomes a riot of color and glory for a couple of weeks in early to mid-April, when the bluebells are blooming.  Which they are.  Right now.  So – here’s your PSA: if you are local to D.C., drop everything and go do this hike right now.  I’ll wait.

I did extensive research to determine which weekend would be the best for viewing the bluebells at their most glorious, and determined that last weekend seemed like the choice.  A quick call over to the park confirmed the decision – a ranger informed me that the bluebells were blooming by Wednesday and would be at peak over the weekend.  Thanks – we’ll see you then!

Peanut wanted to walk, and she actually did most of the trail on foot – good girl!  And even better, she was very well-behaved and did not pick a single flower, which I know was just killing her.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  The trail picks up with a little jaunt over a boardwalk – no bluebells in sight just yet.  We were pretty sure that we were going the right way, though, thanks to the excellent signage.  We enjoyed listening to frogsong in the wetlands, and Nugget pointed out several logs that he was convinced were alligators.

And then – all of a sudden, out of nowhere – bluebells!

They were literally everywhere you looked.  The entire forest floor was carpeted in bluebells, bluebells as far as the eye could see.  We all stopped in our tracks and just gaped.

I assure you, these pictures do absolutely no justice to the pure, unadulterated glory of this trail.  I’ve never seen anything like it – even the hill by my parents’ camp, which is carpeted in periwinkles in the summer, couldn’t compete.  I’m convinced there is a corner of Heaven that looks just. like. this.

Peanut was in her element.  She absolutely loves flowers.  She pranced down the trail shouting “FLOWER PETALS, this is beautiful!” while Nugget repeated “FLOWER PETALS!” from the backpack like a little echo.

I was very proud that she didn’t pick a single one, though.  We practice “leave no trace” on our hikes – leave nothing but footprints; take nothing but photographs – and I knew that was going to be a challenge this time.  Peanut has a case of sticky fingers when it comes to flowers.  It’s sweet, because she wants to pick them for me, but we can’t encourage it.  After she came home with a big bouquet of stolen daffodils from the school garden (but really, who let her in there unsupervised?) we had to talk to her about making sure she asks permission before picking a bouquet for Mommy, as much as Mommy loves flowers too.

But she was a good girl, and she had an absolute ball.

So did someone else.  Little dude was pretty good about not clamoring to be let out of the backpack – I think it helped that we kept up a pretty good clip, and that there was so much to see – lots of birds, dogs, and of course all the flowers.

I couldn’t stop snapping pictures.  I knew that my photos were a very poor shadow of what was actually all around me, but I couldn’t help myself.

Seriously – what a gorgeous hike.  As we walked along, eyes popping out of our heads at the beauty all around us, I told Steve that I thought this was the best hike we’ve done all year.  He replied, “It’s one of the best hikes we’ve done ever.”  I agreed – some hikes, you just know when your boots hit the trail, are hikes for the ages. Hall Ranch  in Lyons; Bear Lake at Rocky Mountain National Park; the Adirondack high peaks; pretty much every Great Falls hike ever – and the Bluebell Trail.

We made it back to the car drunk on spring beauty.  Some of us were so overcome that we had to eat our zippers.  (Not naming names, but…)

Bull Run, thank you for a perfect morning.  We’ll be back before long, because this is certainly a park to experience in all seasons.  But next spring – and every spring, as long as we live here – will find us on the Bluebell Loop Trail, because glory like this must be savored and savored again.

What’s your quintessential spring hike?

A March hike that is really more of a walk is apparently a tradition with this project.  When we did it last in 2015, Nugget had just joined us on the outside and our “hike” was pushing a stroller around paved roads.  This time, we just struck out on finding anything more challenging than mulch – but we had fun and we moved our legs in nature, so I’m saying it counts!

Our main purpose in picking the National Arboretum was to hit up Saturday’s native plants sale.  I had the idea that I might be able to pick something up for my garden.  What I learned was – and all you master gardeners, don’t laugh at me – native plants does not mean edible plants.  Other than a blueberry bush (that I wanted, but Steve reasonably pointed out would probably outgrow our patio space) there was nothing.  Oh, well.

They were still pretty!

After the plant sale, we hit the National Herb Garden for some inspiration, and then made our way around the rose garden as well.  Nothing in bloom, really, other than a few early season flowers (the blizzard two weeks ago really messed up our spring).

Peanut insisted on being let down to smell everything in the perfume garden.  This point is pretty much when Nugget started clamoring to be released from the backpack, too.

After a slight detour to check out the daffodils and a flowering tree, we headed for the original Capitol columns.  Hands down the coolest sight in the Arboretum.

Bad back-lighting alert!

All the world’s a stage for Peanut, but certain places and spaces give more scope for her full range of dramatic expression.  Dramatic dancing and belting out pop songs commenced.

I attempted some artistic photography and failed miserably.

And all the while, the little dude was whining and complaining in my ear, kicking me and pulling my hair.  He thought it a spectacular injustice that his sister was running around treating the columns as her own personal Broadway stage, while he was still trapped in a backpack.

So this had to happen.  I didn’t mind, really – he weighs almost as much as Peanut, so I was starting to think it a bit unfair that Steve was getting in a nice easy walk with an empty backpack while I was hauling about thirty pounds.

Plus – they were ADORABLE.  I did have to pick Nugget up when a Meetup group for greyhounds and their parents came down the path.  Peanut had a ball greeting all the dogs (some of whom were taller than she is!) and charming the folks while Nugget was whimpering in my arms.  (He loves the idea of dogs but takes awhile to warm up to the reality, especially when it’s greyhound-sized.)

All in all – a lovely walk in the sunshine!  Not exactly the most challenging hike we’ve ever done, but there’s something to be said for a nice easy day on a paved trail, enjoying blossoming trees and blue skies.