When's Tick Season Over?

Zoe, Gabe, Anna, Fia, Luca, Jeremy with Lilly, saying "cheese" before hitting the road

Tim making hashbrowns for breakfast -- pouring on the Adobo! YUM!

The two rat snakes that joined us for a short time on Saturday...

My Princess Fia taking kisses from Mommy...

Bubbles turned out to be a big hit with the kids.

Look at that view of the mountains!

World's cutest children! (All mommies say that about their kids, I'm sure!)

Sofia took this photo of Gabe giving me a hug.

And Gabe took this one of Fia and me.

Here's the view of the side of the cabin.

Sooo, I'm starting to think perhaps I'm a little more pampered than I like to believe I am. We went camping this past weekend in the Shenandoah National Park with our friends Alexandria and Jeremy and their 3 kids. It was a great time, don't get me wrong; but I am now REALLY looking forward to the beach house in June! It was a primitive cabin, which is cool, except this time of year, the ticks are out in full force. And let me tell you: I can handle bears. I can handle snakes. I can handle critters and most creepy crawlies. Ticks - not so much. They're just nasty. And every time one gets on me or one of the kids, I wonder if the damn thing is carrying Lyme Disease. Pardon my French.

When we arrived, I did my bear and snake schpiel. You know -- what do you do if you see a bear or a snake? And then I quizzed the kids. They were so well-behaved. We were worried about how well they'd entertain themselves in the wildnerness, but they were fantastic. And the snake schpiel even came in handy. Alexandria came into the cabin a bit too quickly after heading out to the privy to say, "Kris -- there are two huge snakes on the front porch." I got my camera and took some fun photos. Two rat snakes were slithering up the side of the stone wall and cozied up into the rafters on the front porch. I think they knew it was about to rain. :)

We also saw a wild turkey, evidence of a bear (thanks to Zoe, our dog, who chose to roll around in said bear scat -- NASTY!), a baby bird (tangent alert: the baby bird actually fell out of its nest and mostly everyone thought I was nuts to think that the mom might come back for her if we scooped her up with a paper plate and put her back in the nest -- thank you, Jeremy, for helping me save a bird's life), loads o' caterpillars, entirely too many ticks, and some other little critter -- a fox or a raccoon -- it was too dark to figure out what exactly it was, but cute little booger anyhow.

Speaking of cute little boogers: Sofia, Gabe, Anna, Luca, and Lilly all had a grand ol' time -- check out the photos. We did too, although I think next time, we'll pack differently. We packed so much stuff, I thought I'd fall over hiking to and from the cabin. Note to self: Progresso cans of soup weigh a ton! So we might live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cereal, but at least my muscles wouldn't still be sore. :D

To add to already sore muscles, I rode in to work on my bike this week. In typical awful sense of direction mode, I got a bit lost on my way in. I was riding along, enjoying the beautiful weather and the birds singing and the patches of lilac when suddenly I realized I was in Rosslyn. I had missed my left turn onto the path that takes you onto the pedestrian side of the 14th Street bridge. Then I couldn't figure out how to get onto the Memorial bridge, so I wound up taking the Key bridge into the city and had to come down to work from Georgetown. At least I didn't get lost on my way home although I did hit a stupid motorcade and had to backtrack a short distance, but I do believe I'm now set on my exercise for the week -- between hiking and biking!

While I was attempting to be as much of a tomboy as possible for me, Sofia was wearing her "ballellet" outfit for picture day at school, complete with the rainbow-colored tutu. One of her little boyfriends Emmitt had on a suit with red cowboy boots. OMG, I almost wrote down that they were siblings just to get a picture of the two of them together! Only after the fact did it occur to me I could've taken some pix with my Blackberry. Sometimes I forget about the awesome technologies we have available at our fingertips.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures that I did manage to take. Sofia and Gabe actually took some of these shots! Alexandria, I only have one picture of you, and it's where you're making a crazy, silly face while cooking. Without checking with you, I didn't want to post it. It's funny, but I don't know if you'd appreciate me adding it here. Please send me your photos when you get them uploaded. I know you took some great ones, including close-ups of ticks! Eww... :)

xoxo,

k