Fresh air

Kailin woke up with an earache this morning. I've been blessed never to have had one myself and doubly so that neither of my kids have, either. We weren't sure how bad it was going to be or how long it was going to last, so we settled her in with some ibuprofen and a warm cloth and decided we'd better skip church. I'm not sure which did the trick, but she was good as new by noon.

It's been warm(er) lately and we decided to pack up the kids (with an ear covering hat on both of them) and take a walk at Harrington. I'm so glad we did! The fresh air did us all good, and the kids had a ball. They wore their rain boots as we anticipated a lot of puddles due to the warm(er) weather. Not so much with the puddles - but there was still snow and they felt it was hysterical to be flinging themselves around in the snow whilst wearing their rain boots. Most of the path was in fact clear, but the kids, as kids will do, stuck to the parts full of snow. Kailin told Steve she saw a deer track and he looked down at the many dog prints and said, "Where?" and sure as anything she showed him a deer track amongst the dog prints. He asked her if she was going to be his hunting pal when she's older and my answer was "only if you can promise that she won't get dirty and you'll let her wear a dress and tights in the woods..." Ha ha ha. They found sticks and then the real fun began as they used them to poke at every manner of snow, ice, mud, rock, and anything else they could...well...poke a stick at.

Around a few bends we saw a herd of deer and were able to watch them for quite awhile before we moved on. Next we came upon a large, open field still full of snow. The kids were dying to frolic and we gave them the go ahead. They ran off into the field screaming and giggling. We strolled along the path and I looked over just in time to see Colby throw himself down in the snow and make a snow angel. It was just too cute. It was also funny because he didn't have snow pants on! Lastly, it was far too fast because I couldn't get a picture of it before he was up and on to other adventures. They leaped and played until we told them it was time to go. Steve always teases the kids that deer poop is going to get them (it used to be a tactic to keep them moving instead of putzing with every single rock or stick they found). I don't know if that was a factor or not, but out of the blue, Colby declared "Ready, set, POOP!". There wasn't any deer poop in sight and thankfully, no people poop in his pants, but it did make us laugh pretty hard!

Going back up the path we again encountered the deer. This time they were on the move and we got to see them pretty close. They pretty much walked alongside us for a good piece of the trip back to the car. After the deer left us we did a little racing amongst ourselves and then Kailin had some fun throwing ice chunks. Colby, unfortunately, got himself into a bit of trouble regarding eating snow and having difficulty remembering to listen, so he held Steve's hand for most of the trip back.

It was home and warm baths for the kids while I made supper. Fun times like this afternoon make up for all the times that are...less than fun.