Just keep hiking, hiking, hiking...

I'm grateful for my lovely bunch of coconuts!  

Bridal Veil Falls

I am thankful that it was such nice weather.

Nice enough to go snag my niece and go for a hike to Bridal Veil Falls.

Pioneer Day.

So I guess we spent Pioneer Day doing what the pioneers did so long ago. Tromping through the hot mountains....or I guess towards the end you could say it was more of dragging our feet.

I took my family up in the mountains to try and find the trail head to my other trail today. I have been on this trail before, but didn't get on it by the actual start of the trail. So we were following the maps and directions we had to find it and after searching for about 3 hours we still hadn't found it.

It was hot. There was no tree cover. And E kept complaining and complaining about how she wanted to go home. I don't blame her. With how hot it was I was ready to go to.

Here she is being a hot-grumpy bug.

We noticed on the map that there is another 'future' trail head close by so we go check it out. It starts with crossing the creek and then heads up the canyon. So instead of following it up the canyon we just decided to play in the water and it felt So GOOD!

We got home and this little one climbed on the arm of the couch and just zonked out.

I am thankful that I live so close to a mountain stream.

A paved hike

Compared to the last hike I did this one was a breeze. Relatively flat, paved the whole way, and we were under the cover of trees for pretty much all of it.

I am grateful that the girls tolerated me taking more pictures of them.

Going for a little hike.

Ok, so not really a little hike. It turned out to be 7 hours long.

A few people on the trails commitee wanted to go work on one of my trails at 6 this morning. I thought 'That's great! The more people, the quicker we can get it done.' I hadn't been on this trail yet but I was ready to go and be outdoors. At first I was taking pictures of things that we passed that I thought were interesting.

We had been hiking and clearing the trail as we went when we came to this old mine. We were almost to the start of my trail by this point. But we were all hot and were more than happy to go inside the cool mine.

I had no idea how high up the start of this trail was. From the picture below, we started about where you can see houses and we were still not at my trail.

A book that I am reading now (A walk in the woods by Bill Bryson) made me laugh when I read this passage after this hike "...you realize - in a remote way-that the view is sensational: a boundless vista of wooded mountains. This really could be heaven. It's splendid, no question, but the thought you cannot escape is that you have to walk this view, and this is the barest fraction of what you will traverse before you've finished."

That is sure what I felt at this point. We finally reached my trail after about 4 hours of hiking and clearing. And my trail was in awful condition! At one point we couldn't find where it went and we were just bush wacking it for quite a while. Luckily we finally found it again. So we marked both start and finish with signs, added lots of markers on the trail (so others wouldn't loose their way) and cleared as much as we had strength left to do.....and then we started to head down. I was exhausted and had just ran out of water (which I shared with my FIL's dog who stayed with us, because I felt bad for him). But, thankgoodness, going down is always a lot fast than going up. I got home a little after 1 and crawled into the shower and forced myself to get ready to go to a bridal shower.

I still need to get back up there and work on it some more. I find the perfectionist in me anxious to get back up there (but this time I am not clearing any trail except mine) and make it the way I think it should be.

I am grateful for those that were willing to slave away in the hot sun for hours with me. At least next time it won't be as much work. =/

Trail Chief

Went for a hike with my hubby, his dad, and my littlest one. We started out wanting to check out my trail (I am now a trail chief with the city's trail committy). I am excited and was anxious to see 'my' trail. But it was all snowed over and I wasn't about to try and hike it with a 3 year old. So we hiked the one right across the canyon from it since most of it was clear of snow. It was a perfect day and felt so good to be doing something outdoors.

I am grateful for my health.

I just needed a little fresh air.

I really needed to get outside and do some hiking.....to give me some fresh air and to help lift my spirits.

On our way to the canyon we spotted a mama and 2 baby mule deer in someones front yard. It was pretty cool. After we drove away I asked Weston if he pointed them out to Acadia (because I was outside of the car being too busy taking pictures to point them out). He said no.....oops! I guess you could call that bad parenting from both of us.

After we parked and got out of the car I remember what someone had said about taking at least one picture of you with your kids once a month. So I tossed Weston the camera and let him take some of me and my youngest. They arn't the best, but the whole point of it is to just have pictures of yourself so your kids can remember you....and when it comes down to it, they won't care if it is a good or a bad picture. So here is one with me in it.....it is a rare thing indeed!

When we got going a little bit on the trail I was kinda bummed because there wasn't a lot of fall colors on the trees. But the farther up we got the better the view was.

Unfortunately it was getting a little too chilly for the way we were dressed so we cut it short and headed back down. I don't know what it is about kids and going down hills but they just don't seem to know how to walk on them. We had to run all the way down too because she was very determined to run the whole time and I didn't want her to get hurt while she was doing it.

I am grateful for little things that can lift my mood.

Long drive

We drove down to St. George yesterday.....long drive.....lots of construction....yuck. But today we started off our day by taking a short hike down to the river. Then later in the day I got to see an old roommate of mine and meet her cute little girl. I haven't seen her for 11 years so it was great to meet up with her.

I am thankful for kids who love adventure.

Horse flies and the bird refuge thingie

We went to explore another thing in our city. The bird place (I can't think of the real name of it now). It is a great place to go bird watching and lots of birds nest there. Bald Eagles are popular there in the spring. And it is free. yippee!

We had a lot of fun checking it out....but we mostly just drove around because there seemed to be a lot of horse flies. (You can see one on Ashlyn's bum)

The girls were kind of bummed because they really wanted to hike around somewhere (even though they were all in flip flops). So we went and found a trail at the base of the mountain that we hadn't checked out yet. I am thankful that my girls love to hike.

Laughter and a late night.

We went away on an over-nighter with Scott & Merry's family. It was tons of fun....and since this is the first time in a week or so that I have used something other than my cell phone camera, I am going to post a bunch of pictures to make up for it. Enjoy!

I am thankful that we were able to find camp sites close to each other.

If only it was a little bit warmer...

Ok, ok. I know I shouldn't complain, but it was kinda chilly when we went hiking today. Beautiful, but chilly. We decided to have lunch at the head of the hiking trail that we found today. It was a little chilly, but I thought that we would for sure warm up once we started hiking.

I love how every hiking trail I have ever been on is so different and each has it's own special beauty. The beginning of this one went through a meadow. Half of it was covered in wildflowers and there were little streams scattered here and there for us to jump over (which the kids loved!).

It was a perfect trail for kids that was fairly level and not very strenuous.

The second half of it went through the woods. We didn't go too far in the woods because of the misquitos. Lake Tahoe seems to have a lot of them.

When the girls started to whine I told them that I was on the lookout for fairies or for places that I thought that fairies might like to live...they loved that and joined right in....and the whining stopped for a little while.

It was just beautiful and I loved how the wooden parts of the trail winded through the meadow.

I am thankful for tender moments.

A Day in the Woods

We went on another city adventure today. I am grateful that I am finding so many close to my house.

This one was to one of the many hiking trails.....and it was only about 2 minutes away. This one is a paved one and relatively flat. Part of it goes past the animals at Lagoon and part of it went to the duck pond.

I told the girls that we would bring the bikes....and that was before I tried to figure out how to get 2 bikes and a trike in the car. =/ But I managed to jam them all in hoping that I would be able to get them back out.

But it all worked out and they rode while I walked pushing Acadia.....and at times pushing both Acadia and Ella on their bikes when there was a hill. It is a good thing that it was shady because we were wandering the trail for about 2 hours....and we had to stop because I was the one who's legs were tired.