New Year's Hike

When my mom called and said they were hiking battle creek we were sitting at the computer looking at pictures from last year. John was napping and the rest of us were still in our pajamas feeling a bit hung over from our new year's eve party the night before. The one where even Tommy stayed up until 2am.

So we jumped at the chance to do something that would help us all wake up.

We got all bundled up in our snow clothes and headed for the hills. Tommy whined and cried the whole way because he didn't like the way Josh put him in the car seat.

Sometimes Josh and Tommy just don't get along, and it's usually because Tommy thinks Josh should do things a certain way (my way - the way we always do it) and Josh doesn't see the point (because why does it really matter HOW he gets in his car seat?) and then they fight. This was a day of fighting. And both of them being sleep deprived didn't help at all.

But we made it there. And I helped Tommy out of his carseat (the right way apparently) and somehow Josh managed to squeeze bundled up John into his carrier and we headed up the mountain.

Before we hit the pond Tommy wanted to turn around and go home. He was well bundeled but was still cold and sounded a lot like the 101 Dalmatians whiner. "My toes is froze, my ears are froze, why can't we just walk in the snow?"

So he walked in the snow.

Meanwhile Lucy preferred to sit on the snowless rocks.

Once we found the pond though, the bridge was right around the corner, and once you hit the bridge, you're practically to the cave, which is just down the hill from the waterfall. The ultimate goal.

And just like that we learned about setting small attainable goals instead of big ones that make you wanna turn around and go home.

My shoulders swear that Tommy rode on them the whole way up, the pictures say he walked a good chunk - I suppose we should side with the photographic evidence rather than my old lady aches and pains.

The cave people.

I think they would have happily stayed in the cave for the rest of the day - but the promise of sliding down to the frozen waterfall finally got them moving again.

If you've never seen a frozen waterfall before, put that on your bucket list now. (If that's your kind of thing....) The water is still moving, but the surrounding icicles provide a positively beautiful sparkling frame.

Tommy was much more excited about sitting and sliding down than he was about trudging up the mountain. I learned that I am not equipped to be wheelchair bound - pushing us down the mountain on our bums was perhaps the most physically challenging part of the day.

Baby Ian was a saint in his pack the whole time. Apparently singing as we went.

John did surprisingly well considering he's never let us carry him more than 3 steps in this thing.... We vowed (again) to find a better hiking pack for the babies.

If you do this hike soon, you'll see Grandma's angel marks. :)

Any maybe Ryann's too.

There's something incredibly freeing about ditching the snow gear for the ride home. Even "frozen bo-bozen" Tommy was happy to ditch the britches.

This is another one of those moments where I look at my baby and wonder how that happened? I have a 3 year old (primary next week!) wearing snow pants, joining us for hikes. It seems like just yesterday I took Tommy to meet his new cousin Cayson and marveled at how grown up his 2 month self seemed.

These days the pictures of those two simply cannot be contained to a blanket on the floor because they're too busy wrestling each other.

Me and every other mom wanna know, where does the time go?