first snow

Today we ventured out on Jonah's first cross country trip. It's been raining here quite a bit and snowing in the mountains. The Cascades got a foot of snow on Friday alone.

It was a perfect day. The sun was out and the sky was blue with clouds moving fast. The snow was crusty and slick on top and powdery underneath. No cross country tracks. Those were mowed over by snow shoers and snow mobiles. But we managed, though I did fall once on the trail and then once right as we got back to the car, just after I thought, "it would be really silly to fall right here." Of course, the hardest thing about falling is getting up. Tim had to help me both times.

Back to the trail. The forest was beautiful. Heavy snow weighing down the trees and a gorgeous view of a sunny valley and cloud-covered Mt. Hood through the trees. The view opened up in one spot. We admired it, ate our lunches, took a few pictures and headed back. On the way back it began to snow. Baby slept the whole time, then ate when we got back to the car.

When we got to the trail after renting the skis we realized that we forgot to bring the baby carrier. You might see Tim's brilliant solution in the pictures. He put baby, wearing a sleeping bag suit, in his buttoned up wool shirt and wrapped a scarf around his neck on which he rested baby's head. It worked great!