Signs of Spring

It's been fairly quiet around here recently - we continue to have some snow, but we've also had warm weather during the day, so we don't have nearly as much on the ground.

This photo was taken after our last snow - just a few inches, but with the giant piles we already had, it adds up!

One of fun things about spring in NH/VT is making maple syrup. We knew that we had some maple trees on the property, and apparently I can still identify winter maple trees (since we didn't really note which ones were maple trees when it would have been easy). We bought a "do it yourself" maple tapping kit for 3 trees, and Wyeth and JD hiked up the hill behind the house to tap them!

We've gotten a good amount of sap, but I think that the ratio of sap to syrup is something like 40:1, so we'll have a small amount for pancakes. Wyeth thinks that it's so fun to hike up the hill to check on the sap in the buckets and so exciting to see the whole process. It definitely makes it clear why maple syrup is so expensive - the sap only flows for a few weeks (or less) a year, and then it needs to be boiled WAY down.

We also took a whirlwind trip to Oregon for Jocelyn's 40th birthday celebration. It was exhausting, but we had a great time! We flew out Thursday morning (stayed at an airport hotel the night before), and Wyeth took a nap on the 2nd leg of the flight.

Thursday was a quiet afternoon/evening at Jocelyn and Todd's house, and it was great to see how grown up Meadow and Beckett are! They both played so nicely with Wyeth, letting him play with their toys and in their rooms.

Friday morning, Wyeth and I went to get Wyeth a much needed haircut at an awesome kids' place in Sandy - they had a monster truck for Wyeth to sit in and Paw Patrol cartoons playing for him to watch - plus he got a juice box and a lollipop.

Before

During

After the haircut, Wyeth was super patient while I got pedicures with Jocelyn, Tanya, Jen and Mikell, and then we all went out for lunch at a Thai restaurant. Wyeth ate all of a fried shrimp appetizer for lunch, and then hid behind me for the photo.

Friday afternoon we relaxed and had a quiet (and early) evening.

Saturday morning, Wyeth *really* wanted to go skiing, so we packed up and headed into the traffic heading up Mt. Hood. It took us nearly 2 hours to get to Timberline, and by the time that we got there, it was a near blizzard. Not surprisingly, Wyeth decided that he didn't actually want to ski, and we headed back down the mountain to meet up with some other friends for the morning. Wyeth and their son (2 months younger than Wyeth) had a great time playing legos and walking around outside.

After that, Wyeth went to Todd's parents' house for the afternoon and evening, where he had a BLAST! They had a super awesome train set, which apparently entertained him for hours - so much so that when he was asked if he wanted to see a picture of Mommy and Daddy at the party, he said "No thank you". Wyeth also enjoyed playing with the big kids (Meadow, Beckett and their cousin Hope), having treats with dinner, and getting to stay up late.

We had a great time at the party at Silcox Hut. For pictures of Silcox hut, check out this link: https://www.timberlinelodge.com/lodge/silcox-hut 

At 10pm, JD and I and the others who weren't staying the night took a snowcat back down to Timberline Lodge, and then JD and I thawed out our rental car and headed down to pick up Wyeth and go to our airport hotel. We left the hotel at 5am, went to the airport, and started the long journey back east. Not surprisingly, Wyeth was pretty tired, and slept the entire second leg of the trip (he refused to take off his snow jacket!).

We arrived back in NH around 5pm, drove home, had dinner, and started the process of getting back on east coast time. Luckily, we all could sleep in a bit on Monday, so our day didn't start until after 8am. By now, we're all back on east coast time - of course, in 9 days we'll have to shift our time an hour for the daylight savings time change.

After 4 days of not checking the maple sap, two of the buckets were overflowing! JD ended up using our 5 gallon water jug to collect it all, and then actually boiled about 4 gallons down - resulting in about 1 cup of maple syrup! Can't wait to taste it this weekend!

Finally, I'm 25 weeks today. Baby Boy enjoys kicking me - especially at night. I finally felt him on the outside, so pretty soon Wyeth and JD will be able to feel him, too. I can't wait for Wyeth to experience that! According to my app, Baby Boy is 1.5 pounds and 9 inches long. Feeling good, staying active, and starting to get some of the baby stuff out (clothes, diapers). 

25 weeks with Baby Boy

25 weeks with Wyeth - almost halfway through our cross-country move.