First hike of 2014 (also Hiking with a pregnant lady part IV)

Many long-time readers of my blog know that I used to post pictures of us hiking all the time, especially back when I was pregnant with Dylan and when he was a baby.  Martin would also post them on his old blog and call them hiking with a pregnant lady.  We still hike fairly frequently but blogging about it started to seem trite.  This hike, however, was pretty remarkable.  This was the first time that we hiked when there was snow still on the ground.  This has been an unusual winter here in DC in that it stayed cold for a long enough time period for snow and ice to stick around.  Usually we have a cold spell and then a couple 50+ degrees days here and there to give us a break and to melt any snow.  I've been lamenting the lack of break this January but it gave us this unique opportunity to go on a truly winter hike.  Today was the first day it got above 40 degrees and we were all ready to get outside.  It still took a shirt, a fleece, gloves, and a ski jacket for me to be comfortable in 40 degree weather but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  We went to Fountainhead Regional Park to hike the beginning of the Bull Run Occoquan Trail (BROT).  We have done other portions of this trail before but this was by far my favorite.  The trail was clean, far enough removed, and there were lots of picturesque water views.  We made it almost to the 2 mile marker (which meant an almost 4 mile hike) so the kids impressed us with their endurance.  We did have a little bit of a rough start because Lydia had a "I'm not going, my legs are tired" mini-tantrum at the beginning when she found out we forgot the lunch and snacks that we packed (we started hiking at 11am).  But we got her going and she was happy for the rest of the way.  Although Martin did have to carry her on his shoulders for a spell or two on the way back.  It was fun hiking on the snow and ice especially since we had our hiking sticks/ski poles, but on the way back it got kinda muddy so we were glad we started when we did.  You can see from the pictures below the beauty of the frozen creek and the leaf-covered forest ground.  And you can see how frozen the water was that Martin and the kids could stand on it!  Anyway, we had a really great time and hope you all enjoy the pictures - especially you snow birds in FL!