Snow Day #2 Indoors

Hot soya choc without marshmallows, a gingerbread latte with almond milk that actually didn't match the promise of its name and some homework intensive time - here kids-spell gets its first outing in a labelled cold-weather clothing drawing.

Snow Day #2 Outdoors

A hike to Swan Lake and some fast sledging to the water's edge... saw folks we know and got on local TV. Winter Storm J*** left her mark in RVA, though controversially not so much on NYC.

The Mall on Sunday

Williamsburg Outlet Mall, one of those places brands sell seconds or out of season, or made-for-the-outlet-market goods. The girls love the Dinosaur and Race Car rides (though they're beginning to ask questions about actually pushing quarters in the slot), and we love our new Empire Red Kitchen Aid mixer. Here we're preparing to make pizza dough.

It's hard to believe Historical Williamsburg, so attractive, is a stone's throw away as is the beautiful William and Mary campus.

Playdate, Pony Pasture

It was bleak and bare with the most amazing washed-up tree trunks ever - slippy with rain and so much higher than they appear here. Minor injuries only and some monkey-style swinging on creepers and the usual rock hopping, though over icy cold water.

Dance Night at Fox

The build-up is so much more than the thing -morning outfit discussions on route to school, afternoon scone making (even if you don't like the cheesiness), the wet evening walk in your dancing shoes and then the actual thing.

Blissfully unaware of the chaos, the mess, the lack of style, the noise and pressing mass of parents - the kids held hands and spun around grinning. Later the older ones did the same with fewer adults in tow, as they were in Joe's Inn Bar!!!

Breathing in Richmond

Amidst the daytime there are mindful things, such as breathing and strolling... and amazing, now aging jars of dyes on the shelf.

Guinea Pigs on Floyd

They're still in residence, getting fatter and so well cared for...

Natural History & Native American Museums, Washington DC

The Mall, Washington, for a Monday cultural overload with friends, education alternative to school as it was a Bank Holiday. First stop was the Natural History Museum to see the Hope Diamond, rather more bijou than the advertising suggested it would be but still a big gem. Presented in a way only the Americans could manage as it rotated, on a small plinth, a quarter turn every few seconds so everyone could see without having to move round it. Other gems and crystals were fairly impressive and some much bigger, but we learned they weren't all diamonds.

Then to the Native American Museum, mainly for its famous cafe and a menu of traditional food from five aboriginal regions of the Americas. We need the cook-book and to re-create Mesoamerica's Arepas, Frijoles a la Charra, Pickled Cactus and Corn, Salsa de Arbol (aka. beans on fried corn bread with corn salad).

Once home the Guatemalan worry dolls were used with a traditional North American Red Flyer truck and bear stuffing snow fluff, to recreate a scene from the folk tale of The Chenoo.

Weekend on Floyd

Domestic bliss with Kid 9 independently preparing scrambled egg, step one of brunch, and an excellent place to start. Meanwhile Kid 5 is mindfully living in the moment, sorting out her chakras with neatly square slippers.

Guitar Lessons, Carytown

... and so to the new instrument with it's strings and finger numbers (thumbs don't count for this one), chords, plectrums and metronomes. My brain was scrambled, J observed and M got to the Spanish Theme with backing instrumentation and Ode to Joy in just two weeks.

Ice at Maymont

We walked on water (frozen), climbed a waterfall (dry) and saw a totally disinterested bear. A great first meet-up of ZA childhood clans... some forty years on and on the other side of the ocean.

The sound stones makes being sklifted across the ice is ghostly loud and when it cracks beneath a heavy step it is amazing, as long as there is an arm reaching out and only a few frozen inches below.

Project Time, RVA

The 3/4 guitar purchased with advice from the boyfriend of a Girls Rock! camp leader and a token from Granny F.

The case made the perfect setting for the African Savanna ecosystem project, with a meerkat popping out of his egg box mound and just joining the scene - a mangey lion on the horizon. We're not quite straight on the predators & consumers bit but it was fun, apart from the not-so-neat labels.

Mud at Maymont

We made it back across the Atlantic and our first morning without gypsum dust clean-up duties saw us in Maymont in mud!

Only Flanders and Swan could have done the stuff justice.