Mein Mann ist ein Wandersmann!

Jamie loves the out doors! Sometimes I wonder why we bother paying a mortgage, he'd be just as happy living in a tent, happier if we were also backpacking at the same time. Bailey seems to be following in his footsteps, followed quickly by Lucy. I enjoy being in the outdoors almost as much as Jamie, if it weren't for the fact that I spend a good chunk of my time taking care of kids, I'd also be perfectly happy living in a tent.
It is really hard for me to tell with Abby.
This year as we set out on our camping trip, which included two nights at a regular park your car, put up your tent, sit around a campfire campsite and one night spent backpacking and staying at a primitive site that hopefully not even a fully loaded yellow hummer could reach. I predicted that the night spent back packing would be the worst two days and one night of Abby's life. The primitive site where we stayed had no running water, so the toilet was the good old fashioned kind, which is better than some hikes that I have taken where you can't leave anything behind. The other major problem that I saw was that we would actually have to hike to the campsite. Why were these my predictions? Because Abigail has been known to not use a perfectly clean and clean smelling bathroom because she thought she smelled something funky in there. And, the first time we took her hiking, she cried the whole time until we took her out of the carrier and went back to the car. She usually has a fifteen minute time limit on hiking. If the hike isn't over in fifteen minutes, it is pretty much a lost cause that she is going to finish it, at least without a fair amount of complaint and feet dragging.
Well, it wasn't the worst two days of her life. The worst part was that Lucy got to ride in the jogging stroller, and she didn't. We let her ride on the way back just to make it faster. She did remarkably well with the primitive potty and while she still complained about the hike and asked to rest every 100 yards, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I hope the outdoors grows on her, if not I guess we are going to have to find something else to do as a family that she likes.


Here are some great pictures from our trip:

This heart was cut in the limestone by a river.

Here's Lucy playing on the limestone.

Here's Lucy playing with some rocks!


Here is a happy Lucy eating outside, her favorite thing to do!

Here is Jamie, Bailey, Abby and Lucy on a hike that we took.


Here is a shot overlooking a creek below the ledges.


Same ledges, different parent.


Here is Lucy in the jogging stroller with the food.


Bailey and Abby in the tent at our primitive campsite.

Bailey with some berries we found along the trail. There were a ton of them and the were a really beautiful.