Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Getting To Higher Ground







We have some seriously adventurous friends. We also live by some great outdoor recreation places. This combination made for a fun hike over Memorial Day Weekend. Darren had to work so I joined the group as a lone parent of three excited boys. We hiked nearly 5 1/2 miles that day! I had Keaton on my back in a backpack and Blake and Ethan did great running around. Not once did they complain, except for a few minutes in the middle of the hike.
We decided to go back into the mountains to look for frogs in some ponds. Once we got there, though, it immediately started to rain. We tried to stay dry under some trees and big rocks and eventually one of the dads (to remain anonymous:) pulled out a HUGE tarp. Okay, you had to be there. It was about as big as a sheet of paper. So out came to bright yellow ponchos- Blake was especially traumatized by these. He's my child who would love to run around in sleeveless shirts and flip flops all winter. Then I took my rain poncho and wrapped in around the backpack with Keaton in it. We may have looked silly but we all stayed dry. We decided to abandon the idea to wait for the rain to stop and we set out into the down pour. Ethan was glad to get out of there because he had been very observant at the local museum where there is a flash flood demo. Clever boy. (You can see his mood in the first picture.) Those were the few minutes of complaining. Luckily it stopped and we shed our gear and finished our hike. It was great to have the kids enjoy friends- Blake and his buddy stopped to examine pretty much every bug and plant. Keaton wanted me to lean over so that he could have a good look at all the ants. We finished at the parking lot with some hot chocolate.

2 comments:

Emily said...

I had no idea we hiked that far! At first I was reading this thinking, she really thought that tarp was big? You are so funny. You were also the only one that was prepared with ponchos - such a good mom.

team howey said...

I can't imagine if I had to stop what I was doing every time it rained. :) cool pictures.