A Cumberland Cross-Country Skiing Trip

Our wonderful friends Matt and Heidi gave us a call after big Storm Jonas and invited us to visit their little getaway home in Cumberland, Maryland. Matt has had this home for about 3 years and has been fixing it up. They hope to eventually rent it out to those who want to to experience Cumberland and the surrounding areas. With all the recent snow, they also said it would be a great time to go cross-country skiing. We jumped on the invite and drove north. Kyle insisted on having the most ridiculous outfit he could put together and somehow found a pair of my shorts that fit him. I think he won out of all of us and had several people laughing on the trail. I'm glad I married him.

The outfit reveal.

Matt and Heidi's reactions.

Cutest little state park. It's situated on a big lake and they offer
cross-country skiing and snowshoeing during the winter. 

Getting the hang of cross-country skiing takes a little bit of time. Well for me at least.
I feel like I was falling anytime my skies decided to keep going before the rest of my body could keep up. 

The great Cumberland home owners, Matt and Heidi. 

Our friends, the Lloyds came with us too. We've gone on a few excursions
with them including a hike to Old Rag in Shenandoah. 

It was so nice being in nature and seeing all the snow. We ended up taking
off our coats too with the warm weather and the skiing workout. 

The path went uphill most of the time but eventually took us down quite a big hill.
Kyle did wonderfully for not having skied in a while. Outfit and all. 

Such a great group of friends. 

The park ranger recommended Cornucopia Cafe and if you EVER find yourself in Cumberland, MD you must go!
Best tomato soup I've ever had. It may have been the workout talking but it tasted so good.

Catching Kyle mid-throwing a snowball. 

We visited one of the oldest and largest stone arch bridges in America.  

Another favorite part of this trip was a visit to the Fruit Bowl. They had nicely priced produce and a huge selection of candy. Kyle and I loaded up on some produce so we wouldn't have to grocery shop when we got home and snagged a couple of treats too.

Each box had a little handwritten sign of the type of candy. 

It reminded me of my Great Grandma Emily's handwriting.

Hard decisions.

At first glance there isn't much to Cumberland but after exploring and
especially being with good friends, it turned out to be quite charming. 

Thanks Fischers and Lloyds for a great weekend!

A Visit From Winter Storm Jonas

#2016Blizzard has been blowing up on social media the past 5 days and counting. Yes, Storm Jonas visited and dropped off 2 feet of snow, making it the largest snowstorm on record for several locations in the East but especially everywhere from Washington, D.C. to New York City. Luckily, Kyle and I were able to work from home on Friday and prepare for the snowfall  starting in the afternoon. I've always found it funny that people here get really anxious about snow until I realized why. They just aren't prepared for it and when it hits, driving becomes almost impossible with all the ice hitting the roads. Wednesday was the start of a small flurry and I found myself stuck on our road for 2 hours waiting for people to try to get unstuck. It was crazy and I'm glad we were home in time to get ready. Kyle went out and bought some firewood for our fireplace in case the heat went off and I cooked up an extra meal to have ready in case we lost power. It's funny how your thinking changes when you realize what you can't do if you don't have electricity. While working on Friday we watched small flakes turn into bigger flakes and we watched a wall of snow start to accumulate at the base of our door. It was exciting and fun to witness history but not so fun when it was time to dig out our walkways and car. It was also fun to get some snow days off of work the following week. Yay snow days!

I visited the grocery store Thursday night and managed to grab the last lonely skim milk on the  bottom left. The only other milk available was almond milk and chocolate milk.

Almost all of the produce was gone too.

Kyle and Boo waiting for the first flurries to hit. 

And hit they did. 

I got out before it got too bad to get some pictures. 

This is the sight we had the next morning. By dawn we had received at least 20 inches.

We couldn't even open the door to get out and had to climb out the window to start shoveling!

This guy thought he wanted to come out at one point but I could see it would turn the other way real fast. 

Kyle snapped this shot and I thought, "That's how I feel after all of this shoveling."

We got the walkways done enough to walk through and turned to get some of the sidewalk next to our house.

No one had even started shoveling the sidewalk so I caught this moment where we sat down not wanting to keep going. 

 Boo back inside safely and warm.

Our good friends came over in the afternoon and got us out of our cabin fever by taking us sledding across the street.

We found the perfect hill and actually ended up getting quite a bit of speed. 

Our buried car. This took at least 2 hours to dig out.

I guess I should say "Thanks Jonas for the memories!".