70 degrees!

Today was a record-breaking 70 degrees and tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer! So we did all our chores and headed to the park. We are very fortunate to have 4 major parks within a 20 minute drive. The best part of these parks is that they all have trails running through the woods.
Today we went to the park on Chancellor's Run Road. The trail is beautiful. It follows alongside a meandering stream. Because of the drought, the stream is very low. The trail is well-marked with white paint on the trees.
The trail is a mile long, but there are places for you to exit at the 1/2 mile mark and the 3/4 mile mark. The trail starts and ends on the soccer fields. The entrances are marked by different signs that encourage healthy lifestyles.
As usual, my children had fun playing tag on the playground.
This is a terrible picture of Maggie's Hoppin Johns from Saturday night's dinner. We ended up using 6 cans of northern white beans. This may sound like a lot, but our bent and dent store sells them for 5/$1. To the beans, Maggie added 8 cups of long grain brown rice, diced bacon, onions, and spices. It was delicious. If anyone knows why our white beans refuse to soften when cooked, please let me know! I would much rather soak and cook my own beans than use canned beans. I have never had a problem with beans before, but I'm not sure that I've cooked white beans while living in this home.

Tonight we were sitting on our porch for our evening Bible reading, and we kept hearing non-stop sirens from the highway a mile away. (Easy to hear in the winter with the trees bare.) So we found an online scanner that scans our county's fire, police, and hospital radio stations. We quickly realized that you need to know the 10-code list to know what they are talking about. So I thought it would be fun to learn some of the most common codes. Click here for the Official Ten-Code List.

Enjoy your week.

Many blessings ~ Kathie