Tia Price

The Annual Metro Parks Winter Hike series has begun.  My family and I kicked off our participation this past Saturday at Blacklick Woods in Reynoldsbug, Ohio.

When I woke that morning the weather station said the temperature was 11 degrees.  It wasn’t much warmer when I layered up my girls and headed for the park.  We loved the fact that their was snow on the ground.  The girls were excited to break in the new winter boots they each received at Christmas.  The crowd was not overbearing but just nice enough.

We enjoyed greeting others as we strolled the 2 mile trail we had chosen.  Did I say stroll?  It would have been except for the fact that we had one child running ahead while the other stopped to check out each branch, fallen tree, or sign.  But no worries.  We finished the hike in just under one hour, including a stop at the nature center to seek out Cardinals and Blue Jays.  I even slid in a spelling and a math lesson along with all the nature we took in.

We ended our adventure with soup, hot chocolate and marshmellows; posed for some pictures with fellow hikers and headed home where the girls slept for two hours:-)   I love Winter weekends!

If you want to check us out come out next week.  The hike is a Sharon Woods: 6911 Cleveland Ave.  Westerville, Ohio 43081.  The hike begins at 10am.  Bundle up and join us.  We hope to see you there.

You can also check out our family picture in the Winter 09/10 edition of ParkScope page 21.

Child: “Mom you are a princess in my dream tonight.”

Mom: “Oh!  Was Dad my prince?”

Child: “No, he was your horse.”

I wonder what he said to her before bedtime.

Woke up this morning to frozen water pipes.  It was -4 degrees outside.  My toilet wouldn’t flush and my faucets wouldn’t work.  I had plans to do some major laundry and cleaning today to catch up from a busy week of school, work, and my husband in the hospital.  I had to rethink the wash up routine and breakfast for the family.  Then I needed to focus on a solution to the problem.  I prayed for zero to little damage and got to work.

Dad’s advice: Put a space heater near the frozen pipe to thaw it.

Neighbor’s advice:  Turn on the faucet to leave it trickling so it won’t freeze. (Too late!  Good advice for the future.)

Online advice (non-expert):  Find frozen pipe and wrap it with towels soaked in hot water until it thaws.

Water company’s advice:  Hold a hair dryer to the pipes that bring the water in from outside.

They all seemed like good advice to someone who knew nothing about plumbing or frozen pipes.  We went with the space heater advice from dad.  It worked within a couple of minutes.

My advice (and in my opinion the most important advice):  Before you do anything, make sure you know how to shut off your water in case your pipes are damaged.

Never thought my Money Merge Account might be used for something like this.

I know, who want to walk outside in the winter, right?  We get that all the time when we share our experience or invite other families to join in the fun.  You would be surprised how many people enjoy being outside in the winter time aside from the usual outdoor winter activities such as skiing, sledding, and the like.  We enjoy those activities as well but we have yet to have a decent snowfall for those activities in our neck of the woods.  So we have found an alternative.

Last year during my search for activities that my “Biggest Loser” group from work could participate in, I discovered that our local Metro Parks sponsored an Annual Winter Hike Series.  There was a hike every weekend at a different metro park.  Each park offered a short hike (usually about 1 or 2 miles) or a longer one (up to about 6 miles) and also provided hot drinks and soups following the hike.  My group loved the idea and many continued to make the hikes even after our scheduled group hike.

My family went on to attend the remaining hikes last year.  My husband and I earned a patch for completing 7 hikes.  This year we are making it more of a family outing.  Now that our girls are older they are participating in more of the hikes with us.  They hope to earn a patch this year also.  We attended our first hike this past Saturday.  Our girls did a great job and completed the two-mile hike on their own.  (A far cry from last year where cries of “I’m tired!” and “Will you carry me?” were frequent.)  They asked questions about what they saw and were more observant of their surroundings than during our summer trips to the park.  We had a great time and are looking forward to our time together in future hikes.

“And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”
Luke 1:33

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate His reign this year.  May you and your family be blessed in the coming new year and in years to come.  From our family to yours, Merry Christmas!