Kornrumpf, Party of 5: A Mountain Daytrip in April

Brian had a week of vacation in mid-April, which turned into a week of projects like all our vacations tend to do. We actually started out the week with a terrible cold that Brian caught and then passed along to Andrew and me. So part of our vacation time was just spent recuperating from our sickness and also trying to catch up on sleep since Andrew was sleeping poorly because he was both sick and teething (8 total now!). But on the project front, we manually removed sod from part of the yard and laid in down in another spot, as Brian helped me expand a flower bed at the front of the house. For fun (since the Olds is currently out of commission) Brian took the kids on lots of tractor rides around the neighborhood. I had mentioned to Brian that I'd like to try to squeeze in a day at the mountains during his time off, but the week flew by and we never had a good day. So I was surprised that the next week Brian proposed a mountain trip on one of his post-call days. The weather was supposed to be beautiful so we decided to give it a shot. After calls to all the grandparents with last minute invitations, Granddad and Nana were able to join us for our outing.

As usual, we drive up to the Metcalf Bottoms picnic area to play by the stream and have a picnic lunch. The water was still very cold so with the exception of some wet feet we mostly stayed out of the water.

Andrew spent lots of time scooping with his spoon and stirring in his little jar while Brian spent lots of time watering everyone's feet with the chilly stream water.

Nana and Nathan worked on an excavation project to connect two small pool on our rocky beach.

And Sarah spent lots of time building a "castle" out of rocks, complete with windows and doors and decorations.

Andrew really liked the stream, but also enjoyed darting here, there, and yonder trying to dodge the adults and tromp through the poison ivy that was growing prolifically around our picnic sight. And although Andrew took a tumble right onto a few small plants, thankfully he and the rest of us avoided getting a rash.

And, of course, we took our traditional family picture at the stump.

Grandmother had previously recommended that we do the hike to Little Greenbriar Schoolhouse, so for the first time we decided to give it a try. It was quite an adventure - hiking up and down mountains, not sure we were going the right way, alternating between letting Andrew walk and passing him between the adults to carry. The big kids did great almost the whole time (which could partially due to my promise of chocolate chips to kids who had good attitudes!). Then right before we were about to give up and admit we had made a wrong turn, we made it to the schoolhouse!! Unfortunately a guide was giving a history talk in the schoolhouse so the kids did not have a chance to play in it, so after a short rest we headed back down the trail towards the cars.

I didn't take any pictures on the hike, but Nana got this cute one of Sarah on one of the log bridges we crossed.