Summer Hike

I knew having a new baby in the mix was going to make this summer a little less adventurous than most. I had secretly hoped that somehow with baby #4 I would be so experienced that everything would be effortless and I would still be able to keep up our normal summer speed of activities. Ha! The secret is out and I was wrong. New babies are never effortless for me. Even with a practically perfect one, I feel the weight of my inadequacy as I try figure out our new normal. Even so, I think we've had a good summer, although it has definitely been more low key and much of it spent very close to home.

While I have understood the necessity of not venturing out too far, I have also missed some of our normal summer outings. So last week, when some very California-esque perfect weather arrived, I knew we had to do something with it and headed just outside of our neighborhood for my first hike with the kids on my own. Even though it was only a couple minutes from home, I felt pretty brave taking on the challenge. The kids were of course were thrilled and within mere moments of the idea's mention we were all ready to go.

My sweet baby girl wasn't a huge fan of the baby bjorn, but in typical Harlow fashion she didn't make too much of a fuss about it.

Reed decided he was going to use the hike to get ideas to continue working on a sketch he was making of a "super bug" habitat that they had all been working on before I sprung the hike plan on them.

Max, was clipboard free, but full of smiles.

One of the reasons we moved to the neighborhood we did was because of the easy access to these trails. We have enjoyed them, but not as often as I would like. There are a few paths that parallel each other. The kids decided that I should go on the more worn one while they took the more "treacherous" one.

One of the paths follows a creek. I love this type of water, so it was a must-stop on our hike. The kids certainly didn't mind having time to try skipping some stones.

When the kids got tired of throwing stones, we made boats out of leaves and watched them float down the stream. I actually thought Max's simple design was pretty cool.

This is the closest we could get to a group shot. It's amazing to me how quickly Ruby has just become "one of the kids", pretty much abandoning her "baby" role completely.

Sweet Harlow.

Reed was eager to move along the trail, but was patient and helped out when I needed to stop in the middle of our adventure to feed Harlow.

Another unexpected discovery along the way was a butterfly breading ground. I have seriously never seen so m many butterflies in one place.  They didn't show up too well in any of the pictures, but the kids had so much fun dashing about trying to catch one. Max really wanted to bring one home, but thankfully we finally convinced him that the butterflies would be much happier right where they were.

My happy and adventurous bunch.

On our way back to the car the kids were a little more reckless in their hiking and ended up a lot more muddy. Especially when we discovered a lovely mud puddle.

At first we just looked.

Then we got a little closer.

It didn't take long before all three found their way into the mud.

After a while though, they were ready to be clean again.

But not before Reed made a very important discovery...

... a caterpillar which he was confident was a new species.

On our way out.  Reed is always eager to be my photographer.

Once we got home, it was straight to the hose to wash off.

I think the kids enjoyed the clean up even more than the getting messy part of this adventure.

Overall, I think my first "brave" outing on my own was a success. Summer hike? Check.