JOY UPON JOY

After a morning of watching Noah while dil had to go to doctor's, we took advantage of the little bit of sunshine and headed to the creek.  Since there had been two days of drizzle, the creek was flowing a lot more this time-we all ended up with wet feet!

Some of the rocks are boulder size...

while most are football sized.  We look at the center where the smaller rocks are because lugging around large ones isn't as much fun as a bunch of pretty SMALLER ones! lol  One of the science lessons that get discussed during our rock hounding!

This is a beauty but I couldn't barely pick it up so I just petted it and left it behind!  It really is a deep green!

There are also lots of large red jasper

 but green is the dominant color!

Some of the areas we have to transverse look like this! 

 Yup, under, over and through is our motto!

And when we are tired, thristy and wet we still have to climb the 300' bank to home-which you can see at the very top of this picture.  After the rain, the bank is slippery and hard to get a good foot hold--there are a lot of sliding back down when you hardly have any oomph left!  I did a lot of sitting and resting but was determined to climb it all the way myself! 

 I'm slow but definitely determined!

It's fun to unwind for a bit before dinner and then savor the joy of bathing this guy....he has a tub of toys and what does he want to do?  Figure out the faucet and shower button! lol 

 The men in our family are all mechanically inclined 

and Noah is well on his way to 'figuring it out!'

 

BLISS

First snuggles after a very hard day of travel...helped to melt away the stress.  (I'm showing them pics from our flight-from beaches to snowy mts!

Grandpa enjoyed playing with Noah, newest grandchild (#9) who will soon be one-it's been a hard year to schedule a visit 

but we are making up for it now!

Noah is busy and curious about all gadgets and how things work.  

Yesterday morning, we enjoyed crafting Dotz after breakfast.  

We woke up to 34* temps which are a bit of a jolt but is not going to deter us!  This is the view from the big picture window 

just to the left of the dining room table!

When you see trees like this,

 you understand that this area is a rain forest!

At noontime, it had warmed up into the 50's so we ventured down the hill to the creek bed below to rock hound!

  What a blissfull few hours we enjoyed! Some of the creek was open and enjoyable to walk and then in other areas, we had to duck up and over branches which was quite a work-out!

Through the tough terrain, the girls were very helpful

 and we shared a ton of laughter!

We are sitting on a ledge here swinging our feet out 

so you can see the drop! lol

We haven't yet cleaned all the rocks we hauled up to the house but so far, this one is my favorite!

  It is a large piece of green jasper--there's tons of it here!