A Trip to the Mountains

Since it has been summer in the desert we were MORE than excited to head up to the mountains with the mariachi on a recent trip. The schedule allowed it so our family went up a day early to enjoy a little R&R with the pines.....

Of course, we had to explore the grass

Riding on Daddy's shoulders is ALWAYS the best place to be! SOOOOOO big!

I had a magnifying glass I had been saving for Jaden

to explore with on a special expedition and it was a big hit. He explored leaves, flowers, grass, trees......and said "WOAH, it's so BIG" every time he looked at something!

checking out the tree....

Alivia LOVED pinecones. Of course, just like everything, she wondered what they tasted like and tried exploring with her mouth too!

I still can't get over how ridiculous AND adorable these pigtails are!

Some friends let us borrow a baby carrier backpack and it was SO nice!

We didn't do much of a real hike but it was handy to carry

Alivia around as we did a little exploring!

We had a great day exploring but I joked with Stephen that if anyone had asked us what we did all day they might have thought we were pretty boring. He reminded me that perhaps other parents of 2 kids 3 and under might think it sounded like the perfect day as well!

We stopped by a little park/visitor's center for a short hike (aka about 2 blocks worth) and discovered a stream. Jaden had a lot of fun throwing rocks, leaves and pinecones in. We discovered that the pinecones were the most fun to watch float downstream!

Of course, you can only LOOK at a stream for so long when you're 3. So....While it was a bit cool it wasn't too bad and....who wants to try to keep a 3 year old boy OUT of the water when he really wants to explore!?!?!?

After a short nap in the backpack Alivia was ready to explore as well.

and keeping this girl away from water is near impossible!

closer...

closer....

closer.....

happiness!

Since we didn't have a change of clothes we had to get down to the diaper. It was probably a bit chilly for that but, we sure had a happy girl!

After the weekend events with the mariachi we stopped at a resort out in the mountains by a lake. Jaden got to go on his first pedal boat ride.

He thought it was fun for about 10 minutes. Then he wanted to get off of the "boring" boat and go on something a bit faster! No motor boats on this small lake though.

And, pedaling was a bit harder than I remember.

Maybe we'll wait until he can pull his own weight on the pedals before we try this again!

I sure do love this family of mine!