30 minutes

This morning I decided that we were going to go on a nature walk. The snow is beautiful and the temperature wasn't unbearable so I called my friend, Jennie, who also homeschools and we decided to meet at a nearby park that has a lake with a path around it. The path winds around in the woods and has a few hills. So not only is it pretty, but I knew the kids would get some exercise. It all sounds great, right? Well, it was. But did it ever take some work just to get there! We planned to meet at 11. At 10 am I nursed Charlotte. At 10:25 I started the bundling process. I wanted to make sure everyone had adequate coverage because it was only about 20 degrees outside (which is downright balmy compared to what the forecast is for tomorrow). We did not start backing out of the driveway until almost 11!!! It took 30 minutes to get snow pants, mittens, hats, scarves, coats, and boots on five children. Fifteen minutes later as we were all piling out of the Suburban I realized that everyone had taken off their mittens. Grrrrr!!! I had so carefully tucked them INSIDE their sleeves. Why oh why do they undo everything? Okay so we re-bundled and set off around the lake. I don't know how much appreciating nature they actually did, but they sure enjoyed running and laying in the snow and pulling at dead branches. We did find some rabbit, raccoon, and dear tracks so my plan is to have them draw those in their nature notebooks. And they probably won't look anthing like real rabbit, raccoon, and dear tracks. And Peter will probably end up drawing the yellow snow that we saw by a tree which Miss Jennie pointed out as a lesson about how it got yellow and why we don't touch yellow snow, but whatever. All in all it was worth the effort. Their messy hair, rosy cheeks, and bright eyes made me smile as we headed home for tomato soup and hot chocolate.