The January Outdoors

 To kick off our Year of Outdoors, we decided to start with a place close to home - Porter Park!

 It may seem silly to visit a neighborhood park in January when it's freezing outside... and you'd be right.

 
The idea was that we wanted to see what our town has to offer. I know Porter Park is a happenin' place during the summer, with splash pads for the kids, and community events, but we got to check it out in the snow all to ourselves!

The day was fantastically beautiful.

Mr. Wynn slept the whole time...

Jon's face basically sums up how cold it was:

After some time on the swings, Kate just wanted to be picked up and carried back to the car.

Kate also kept asking to go down the slide, but the playground was way too icy for any adventures:

 She and Jon sure looked cute, though!

And a picture of the sign, for good measure:

 

From the Rexburg Area Chamber of Commerce:

"Porter Park, named in honor of Arthur Porter, Jr., is situated in downtown Rexburg. It has picnic tables, playground equipment, tennis courts, a basketball court, a baseball field, a water slide, and a volleyball area. The jewel of the park, however, is the historic “Idaho Centennial Carousel,” which is one of 170 antique carousels still existing in the United States."

So we will definitely be going back! We'd really like to spend the rest of the winter months doing more winter appropriate activities (like sledding, or building igloos) but this was a good start. Visiting Porter Park was a great way for us to just get OUT OF THE HOUSE and have something to do together :) I'm thankful for the outdoors and all those people who keep parks like this one nice and clean so that we can have great places to play.

Portrait of a Young Boy Crawling

Jon left for work and Edwin was sitting on a blanket in front of me laughing and babbling. He just wanted to talk to me, and I was busy playing on my phone. When I looked up to babble back he smiled his huge gummy grin and I realized that right now I am his whole world! How long will that last? So I went and grabbed my camera.

I didn't do anything for the next half hour except take pictures of the kids. I got down on their level and just watched. It started with Edwin crawling all around the room, looking at the bookshelves, scrunching up the blankets, and following me around. He would turn and scoot like an inch worm to face wherever I was. He has so much concentration to army crawl to where he wants to be. I love his serious face! Most of his excited smiley faces were too fast to catch, but I'll remember them :) When Kate woke up she was so excited to show me her snow hat and Winnie the Pooh. I just let her play and talk to Edwin. It's so much more fun to observe than to coach. This is a glimpse of our snowy afternoon.