Valentine's Weekend

Don't worry. No mushy stuff here. In fact, Jonathan didn't do ANYTHING for Valentine's Day. I mean, he planned the family hike, but that wasn't exactly romantic. Luckily Isabelle made up for it by making me a cute card. She's so sweet. And it isn't as if we didn't celebrate Valentine's. We just did it in an unusual fashion.

My friend, Telma, and I hosted an "Indian Night" at her house on friday. We set up a table just off the floor and she made pillowcases with some beautiful colors to sit on as we ate a candlelit dinner of Curry Chicken, Samosas w/ tamarind chutney, Naan Bread, Cauliflower Curry, Mango Lassi, and a variety of nuts, raisins, dates, etc. She even had a variety of Indian clothing given to her by a friend so the girls all dressed up. After dinner we watched the Bollywood movie "Bride and Prejudice." I love chatting with friends.

On Saturday we went to Wadsworth Falls.

Emily enjoyed being in the backpack.

It make look like innocent snow the girls are standing on, but it isn't. It's ice. Solid ice. Very slippery ice. You may notice that the trail is on a slope. The girls "skated" down the slope. We walked to the side of the ice laden trail, unless there wasnʼt room. Then we all held hands in a row so that when one kid slipped and fell Jonathan and I were on either side to hold them up. They all still managed to fall multiple times.

Sometimes, it was easier just to crawl.

When we got to the upper falls, the trail went down a hill to the bottom of the falls to give a better view. We started going down the trail on our rear-ends, ended up sliding a couple yards into a tree, with David and the girls crying because they were scared. Thatʼs when we decided to give up on the trail and just stay with the tree. The view wasnʼt good, but I wasnʼt sure how we would get back up the hill. So we just sat there and ate our snacks while the kids redeveloped their confidence that Mommy and Daddy would keep them safe. Then we managed to find a bit of snow that hadnʼt iced over and very carefully handed the kids back up the bit of hill we had slid down. It was quite the adventure. And don't believe the pictures too much. They are deceptively brown. What you can't see is that much of the brown actually has clear ice on top as well.