Eve helped with yard sale signs. :)

We had a busy yard sale weekend. Saturday went really well, with four other houses on the street joining in and tons of people stopping by! The kids set up a stand (borrowed from the neighbor) and sold lemonade and rice crispy treats. It went so well I updated the signs, sent out news messages to the listserve and Facebook, and extended my sale through Sunday. Apparently Sunday is NOT a yard sale day! I had only three people stop by and none of them bought anything, though they did take things from my “free” table. At noon I boxed everything up and took it all to the donation center!

We have been trying have more fun family time and apparetly my yard sale didn’t count, so this afternoon we decided to take a hike up Mt. Ascutney. Well, the plan was to drive up and then walk the “easy” trail to the summit. We double checked that the road to the top was open, so we didn’t have the same problem we had last time we tried it!

We went to Jesse’s for dinner, after calling ahead to make sure dogs are allowed on the patio. Part way through dinner the manager came to tell us that dogs are not actually allowed on the patio (darn OSHA!), but she kindly allowed us to put him on the other side of the split rail fence. His first time out to dinner and he gets booted. Poor pup!

By the time we finished dinner and got to the mountain it was already 7pm. I said, great, it will be a sunset hike! The website says the park closes at sunset, but the guy at the gate said the gate locks at 8pm. Eek! So we did a very hurried hike!

We were expecting an easy .7 mile trail, but we got this instead!

Do you see the trail in there?!?

It was worth it though! Look at this view!

Beautiful sky!

Almost sunset.

At the West Peak Vista, on the way to the summit.

Some people get beautiful family portraits… we get this! :)

Arlo was there too. :)

Alan being a human compass, pointing out the sights for the kids.

Then it was off to the summit!!

More of this! NOT the flat, easy trail I promised the kids.

Seriously?! And we were doing it in a hurry! Energetic Eve and Alan zipped right ahead, but Lex and Arlo and I took a bit longer.

When we finally made it to the summit we found pure beauty! There is an observation tower at the top (which I did not get a picture of), so you can get even higher!

Eve, enjoying the view.

Moments before the sky turned pink.

Eve suggested a photo! :)

Then Lex asked to be in the photo!! My lucky day!

We were almost half an hour late and when we got back to the car, the park rangers were heading up the road, probably looking for us! I got a quick glimpse of a beautiful pink sunset from the viewing area, but Alan was in the car and the park rangers were driving up, so I didn’t get the final photo. It will have to live in memory!

The day was full of ups and downs, but we all agreed to keep “practicing” our fun family outings and hopefully we’ll get better at them! :)

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