Week End

Whew!  It's been a busy week and next week is not looking any less crazy.  It's getting near the end of the play, I am looking forward to that.  Happy to say none of the kids are sick-yet.  We have not made it through the whole winter play without having some kind of plague before, so I am not making any plans for the first week of March...

Let's see.  Last weekend we cut wood-the WHOLE weekend.

Monday we just had play rehearsal, Tuesday was game day with the teens, that went well again.  We ended up hanging out from 1 in the afternoon until it was time to scoot up to rehearsals.

 Wednesday we stayed home and stayed warm.
 Thursday was dance, then we had dinner with friends and then rehearsals (again)

On Friday, we picked up Rhoen and Britney came out and they all went to a dance.  It amazes me that the kids love to dance, I would never have even thought about it if not for the teen group.  I am glad they like it, though!  They let Chan and Brit in as a couple, which amazed me considering there was not a single Hispanic or Black person in the whole auditorium of 200+ people.  Not exactly a melting pot...unless it's melting potatoes in Colby cheese...

They quickly met up with more homeschooled teens, there were about 15 of them hanging out most of the evening.
I love that the kids are so nonchalant about having their parents around, they did not slink off to be on their own, they shared a table with the adults and chatted and got up and danced and came back and talked more.

Matt had Friday off this week, we took advantage of that by doing as little as possible.  We have enough wood to take the weekend off-our first off since November.

So, Saturday we took Brit back home and walked 6 miles at the refuge on the way back home.

On Sunday, we were ready for longer trails, so off to Richard Martin!
We managed to get up there with all of $5 between us in cash-the store at the turn-around does not take debit.  So we spent part of the 6.5 miles walking up there planning what we could get for $5 for some type of lunch.  We'd split a bag of jerky and had some Life Water all day.  We are doing the 5-2 plan, today was a fasting day-which does not mean no food, it means 500 calories.  We fast one day every weekend (and every one of his Friday's off) because Matt has a hard time fasting at work.  But, walking as much as we did requires some food, so we opted to blow through 1,000 calories and call it good.

Enter Belle Chevre (bell chev) Tasting Room.  What a find, it's at Elkmont at the halfway point on the Richard Martin trail.  They take debit.  For $8, we split a large cheese plate, it was MORE than enough and at around 2000 calories, fit the bill perfectly!

Honey cheese, fig cheese, sun dried tomato cheese, original cheese, beets, crackers, red pepper jelly, almonds and summer sausage.  So good...

We ate so long it was well after 3 when we headed back, so we scooted the 6.5 mile trail in about 2 hours, which is AMAZING for me as I won't walk more than 2.5 MPH unless there's a fire behind me gaining ground.  We did the whole 13 miles plus stopping to talk to a lady with some dogs for 10 minutes and eating lunch in 5 hours and 5 minutes.  Go me!  I am getting there...just hope I can get back again.  hahaha!

On the way back, I heard the first of the spring peppers.  I nearly cried, I was SO happy!!

And that was our week!  Tomorrow is Baby Girl's 16th birthday, I can not believe it.  Seriously.  It won't stick in my head, I get re-surprised EVERY time I think about it.  I was FINE with 15, that's still very much 'girl'.  16 is something else.  Something closer to having wings.