Well hello, February!

It is hard for me to believe that we are already half way through the month of February, but here we are.  The great thing about February, in my opinion, is that March is just around the corner.  Each day we get more daylight, and while February is still the heart of Winter, it gives me hope.  As we enter February, we've made it through the long darkness that starts in November and continues into January...and I am always thankfully to be done with January.  

I know a lot of people who love Winter, and while I live in Michigan and have my whole life, I am not one of those people.  Although I do not love Winter, I have learned over the years to embrace and enjoy it-in large part thanks to some very special girls.  Honestly if it weren't for Maddie and her love of this time of year, I may have spent most of my life hiding inside to avoid the snow and cold.  But Maddie's joy when she's out in the snow encouraged me years ago to find ways to make the best of the season so that she could enjoy it too.  And I have to admit, Winter can be very pretty.  You just have to learn to accept that it is an inevitable part of life here in Michigan and make the best of it.

Mother Nature was very kind to us here in Michigan through the month of January.  We had very little snow and warmer than average temperatures.  While it was still cold, it was easy to get out and explore without a lot of additional preparations, until the last week and a half.  But with February came much lower temperatures and plenty of snow.

Before the weather changed, we decided to take advantage of the last of the mild weather with a trip to Grand Rapids to enjoy their "World of Winter" festival.  There were several light and art displays throughout town and we picked the perfect night to visit.  

The weather was mild and because it was mid-week, there weren't many people.  We enjoyed the walk around town exploring the different displays.  

I enjoyed the ice luminaries and loved the chess and checker boards made of ice.  They even had an area to play corn hole with displays made of ice there too.

I especially enjoyed the large geometric lighted art display.  The colors and shapes were beautiful.  They were definitely the highlight of my trip.

The interactive displays with the lighted seesaws and the singing tree were especially a hit with Peaches.  The tree would light up as people sang, yelled, clapped, and whistled, and Peaches loved all of the commotion.

It had been nice to get out and explore something new.  We definitely needed the change of pace!

 

After our trip to Grand Rapids, we had one last day of warmer temperatures before our mild Winter season came to end.  Peaches and I went out for a walk that afternoon with clear sidewalks, but within 10 minutes of getting home from our walk, the snow had moved in, and with it came much colder temperatures.

With the colder temperatures, out came the girl's coats so we could all bundle up for our walks.  I think they look awfully cute in their coats.

On really cold days, the girls would rather spend most of the day snuggled up inside, but we still get out almost every day for a nice walk.  If we didn't, I know that all of us would be restless.  Now that I am working from home, it's nice to get out of the house for a change of pace.

Despite the cold and snow, we also continued to make progress on our North Country Trail hiking.  I wasn't quite prepared for the deep snow and unmaintained trail through the Battle Creek area, but it's Winter in Michigan, so we were determined to make the best of our time. 

After averaging over 7 1/2 miles per hike in January, our progress slowed tremendously for the first two hikes in February.   Trudging through 5 inches of snow and breaking trail the entire time will definitely slow you down!

But it was beautiful and we got in a good workout for the day.  And of course Peaches had a blast the entire time.  

We were all thankful to get to the small section through downtown Battle Creek where the sidewalks had been plowed which made for easy walking.  Maddie was happy to join us for that portion of the hike and between the two different sections of the trail, we were able to complete just about 3 1/2 miles for the day.

After a hard day of hiking on Saturday, I planned to have an easy and relaxing day at home on Sunday, but when I woke up and saw the sun shining, I couldn't resist getting the girls out for a nice walk.

It was cold, but I decided we'd bundle up for a walk on campus along the Red Cedar River, and for the most part, we stayed out of the wind and stayed comfortable.  It was a beautiful day to be out for a walk.

After our short walk on campus, I took the girls to Family Farm and Home.  Each of them got a trip inside to walk around and sniff everything and I'm pretty sure it was the highlight of their day.

We have been spending most of our week nights walking at Fenner Nature Center.  It is much better than walking through our neighborhood, especially this time of year.  The paths are well packed and time in the woods is always better when it's cold and windy outside.

Peaches and Maddie love a good trip in the car and with our trips to Fenner, we can get in a nice drive and a good walk every day.  It has been a great way to get out during this Winter and really enjoy it.

Friday night, we had a special guest.  Dean is a 2 1/2 year old GSP who needed a place to sleep for the night on Friday and needed to hitch a ride to Kalamazoo on Saturday morning so that he could get to his foster home in Illinois. 

It was a fun night at my house with a youngster here.  He really loved Maddie and followed her around everywhere she went.  I took each of the dogs on individual walks around the neighborhood and then after dinner, they all settled in for the night.

We were up and off by 8:30am on Saturday morning to get Dean started on his way to Illinois.  It was a quiet and uneventful trip and gladly he made it safely all the way to Illinois.  After dropping Dean in Kalamazoo with the next transporter, the girls and I headed to Battle Creek to meet with Vanessa and Emmalee for our day on the North Country Trail.  

Luckily for us, the trail was in better condition this weekend than it was last week, although it was far from clear.  Some areas of the trail had been plowed or walked on previously which made our hiking easier, but we still head some sections that were deep and we were blazing trail again.  

We hiked nearly four miles total, about 2.75 of those miles were new, unique miles for our hike the county challenge this year.  We are happy to continue to make progress toward completing hiking Calhoun County, even though it is slower than we had hoped due to the weather.   It was another great day out on the trail and we all enjoyed our hike and I'm looking forward to seeing what we can get done next week.  

We had a quiet Sunday and have hunkered down again today as the temperatures with wind chill will be the coldest we've had all Winter.  But as I look ahead at the weather for the next 10 days, it looks like we're heading for some warmer days and warmer days with longer daylight hours mean more adventures are ahead.  

We are just about a month away from Spring and every day that we get closer to March, I get excited about what is ahead for us.  Until then, we'll be hunkered down and keeping warm and continuing to adventure as much as we can.