It's Finally Here!

We got back late on Saturday night from a great week-long visit with my parents (remember, they live in the land of no internet, thus no posting for over a week). When we left, we still had tons of snow on the ground. The photo below was taken right before we left, and you can see all the snow on our deck through the doors. (Please excuse the total lack of editing on some of these photos as I'm having some technical difficulties with my iPhoto)

Happily, when we got home, the snow was gone. All of it. Gone, gone, gone. I posted a month ago that spring was coming. I thought it had come when almost all of the snow melted shortly after this post. Then we got another huge, soul-crushing snowstorm and winter continued to drag on and on. But now, I think we're in the clear. The crocuses are blooming. The grass is greening. The trees are budding. And the air smells like spring. We wait a long time for it. But spring is so worth it here. Yesterday was almost 80 degrees. We had a brief spring thunderstorm on the morning and then Miss and her Daddy got out to play in the puddles.

Yeah, she wanted to wear legwarmers, so that's what you see coming up out of her rain boots.

Splashing.

And splashing.

She loved the puddles. I didn't capture it on film, but eventually she ended up kneeling and then sitting in the puddles.

Off in the distance you can see my hubby pulling up the stakes we use to mark where our driveway is when it snows. Yep, we get that much snow. And we're just now, in mid-April, confident enough to pull these things up.

The day was so beautiful, we decided to have a picnic. In the back end of my vehicle, that is. We drove a few miles to this fabulous old drive-in restaurant. In case you can't read the sign, it says "Since 1948." The carhops still wear roller skates.

I have wanted to go to this place since we moved here, but it didn't seem like a very baby-friendly place. Then I got the idea to put our picnic blanket down in the back of the Expedition, take along the Bumbo for Lass, and have a drive-in picnic.

Perfect!

We had a blast hanging out in the back of the truck. The girls were wonderful.

And it turned out to be a great way to spend some quality time together.

We played, and then ate, to the sounds of cars whizzing by and 50s music playing through the restaurant's outdoor speakers. "I Only Have Eyes For You" was one of the favorites of the afternoon.

The food was even good!

Root beer in a frosty mug fit like a glove in my rear cup holder!

Miss tried a taste of my root beer. It kind of freaked her out at first, and she almost tried to spit it out. I think she didn't like the carbonation. But then she swallowed it and realized it was pretty good and asked for more.

Of course, spring wouldn't be complete without some good thunderstorms. I love thunderstorms. Unfortunately the storms last night came with funnel clouds and up to 2-inch in diameter hail. So we spent a little more quality family time in our basement.

It's not my favorite place in the house. But Miss had a blast playing with her toys down there and running around in the open space.

It was a perfect start to spring (fortunately the storm ended up being pretty tame in our area and we didn't have any damage from it). I am looking forward to doing so much this year now that Miss is older and can enjoy more things. We will be taking trips to the park, with real picnics on the grass. We'll be taking walks and going to the zoo and getting a swing set/sandbox for our backyard. And our pool opens in just a month and a half, which means summer! Spring will be short this year, but we'll enjoy it to the fullest.