This past weekend, Kate went to Arisia, and in order to get a change of scenery and a bit of adult backup, I took the kids up to visit friends in northern Vermont. They have two boys, the younger of whom is just a few months older than SteelyKid, and I was pretty sure the kids would hit it off. I turned out to be right about that, as SteelyKid and C. spent hours engrossed in the construction of an elaborate pillow fort:
SteelyKid is really happy to be making a pillow fort.
This is a very early stage of the construction, from Friday night. They continued working on it all weekend, and at one point had to be dissuaded from attempting to add a second storey.
On the way up Saturday it was grey and rainy, so I couldn't see much, but Sunday dawned very prettily:
View of the Green Mountains from near Waterbury.
That's looking over the back yard of my friends' house. We spent much of Sunday afternoon sledding at a nearby golf course, which isn't really a camera-friendly activity.
The other big highlight of the trip, for The Pip at least, was the outdoor hot tub:
The Pip doing a happy dance inside the outdoor hot tub.
(That's taken with my phone, because again, not a camera-friendly activity...)
It took a little coaxing to get him in-- we had to "cool" the water by adding trivial amounts of snow to the spot where he was putting his feet in-- but once he was in, he loved it. He chattered happily the whole time, and kept bringing handfuls of snow and pieces of ice in to watch them melt. We couldn't get SteelyKid in, but he's definitely a hot-tubbing Little Dude.
So, a good time was had by all. The one down side is that the kids treated the whole thing like a trip to Fairyland, as if they might be trapped in Vermont forever by eating any food they found there. Fortunately, I had brought some staple foods from home (such is life with absurdly picky eaters), but they were a little underfed and overtired by the end. We got them to bed early last night, though, and off to school this morning, so life is back to sort of normal. And SteelyKid is already agitating for a return visit...