Castle Rock

I was having a really hard time at home with the kids yesterday, so I decided sort of abruptly that we were going to go hiking. We drove about 30 minutes up a mountain (the kids kept saying, "why is the car doing the hiking for us?") and set out on a short, very kid-friendly hike.

I had planned to bring the camera, but forgot it in our hurried departure, so I only have phone pictures. And the lighting was iffy, so everything is blurry.

This hike was great because it was only 0.3 miles to the top, and really green and shady the whole way. These are the only pictures I got of the hike up, I'm afraid:

Em and I wore matching sandals!

Then all the kids wanted in on the shoe picture. It looks like Caleb's wearing a skirt here, but it's really only Elinor wearing Caleb's old shoes. :) Caleb's in the orange.

Once we got to the top Emily said, "Oh, now I see why it's called Castle Rock!"

They wasted no time in clambering to the top of the first stack of rocks they came to.

And there were lots of rocks. Piles and piles of boulders. Even Caleb got in on the action. And this kid does not like heights.

Jake's big climb. He was so cute calling for me to take his picture on this rock he climbed!

Then he got more into it...

Maybe a little too into it. I probably had three mini heart-attacks while we were there. There is a pretty good drop-off on the other side of these rock piles. Emily drew a picture of this experience in her journal and she has me standing on the ground with my mouth in a big "O" because I was so nervous the whole time. I only lasted about 15 minutes before I called them all back.

We took this picture before we headed back down. I loved that Jake's stick was as big as he is.

The kids wanted to keep going when we got back to the parking lot so we hiked a couple more miles to the falls. Here they are in a cool rock-cave thing.

Emi and Caleb were hiking side by side, just chatting, for a good portion of the hike. It sort of melts my heart to see my kids being such good pals.

And if that's not enough for you, here are some much better pictures taken by Joseph's phone of the hike we did on Monday. This is actually where I run most weekends so it was fun to show Joseph and the kids.

These guys are climbers!

It was a pretty cool old tree stump. Big enough to fit all four with room to spare!

I have no idea what this rock sign was for.

A hollow tree. I was tempted to leave Emily and let her live there. Living in a hollowed out tree is her idea of heaven. (Too many fairy books for that girl!)

Hiking with the family is one of my favorite things to do. You would think it would be stressful, especially when it's just me and the four kids, but it was amazing how I immediately felt more patient and excited and happy as soon as we struck out on that hike yesterday. I hope when they go back to school on Monday they will be so excited to report to their classes that they got to go hiking a whole bunch with their family. In reality, they will probably say, "My mom made me hike a whole bunch and it made my legs really tired." But hey, these are character-building experiences, right? And what keeps Mama happy keeps everyone happy.