Vacation: Hiking

I've been wanting to write a few stories from our family vacation, but haven't gotten around to it yet. So instead of being paralyzed by trying what to write from so many memories, I am going to post a few different types of stories and try to cover the bases. Just FYI, we spent a week in mid-August in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. We stayed in a condo in Estes Park, CO with my immediate family, and were right by the main entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. It was beautiful!!

First up: HIKING!

We had SUCH a great time hiking as a family. Aaron and I have been wanting to hike more with the kids for pretty much all the time we have been parents. But when we are home, projects around the house, family plans, or other events always seem to be more important. But when we were away for a week, in the midst of such awesome beauty, there was nothing stopping us!

We had 3 really strong hikes as a family. Now, when I say strong, I mean that we technically did hike, for as long as we had planned to...with the caveat being that all trips were on the shorter side, and carefully planned around naps/meals/etc.

But really, the kids did great. Molly, in fact, LOVED IT! She seriously enjoyed the backpack carrier that I carried her in most of the time, and went back and forth between sitting happily, and then trying to stand on the back bar and look all around her. She even took a nap back there for a little while. I was totally feeling my Native American roots with my little papoose on my back:) And when we got her out of the carrier...watch out!! She was in LOVE with the whole idea of hiking, and really enjoyed scrambling more than I ever thought an 18-mo-old could. See the pic below of her attacking a huge boulder with all her might!

Ben did really well, too. Though I must admit that the first 1/4 of each hike was a bit hard for him. Not physically, so much as mentally. We got a lot of questions like, "Why do I have to hike?, Where is the park? Is this all we are doing?" But once we got going, he did great for the rest of the time, and LOVED leading the pack. He would take off down or up the mountain fearlessly.

We had such a great time hiking that Aaron and I are going to re-commit ourselves to hiking more...though we've been back several weeks now and haven't hiked yet:( Hopefully we will set ourselves straight!