A little slice of this country we call home.

On Saturday we decided to not let the glorious sunshiny day pass us by, so we drove through this beauteous land we call home and went on a little hike/walk.  Brett was disturbed by the lateness of our going, but it all worked out because Talmage had his nap in the car on the way.

This picture was taken as Brett threw away a bag containing Hazel’s puke into a trash receptacle.  Even though we handed her the bag in plenty of time, she still missed and some ended up in the van.  The girl certainly gets car sick a lot.  But it’s hard to blame her on the windy mountain roads.  It’s kindof easy to blame her for missing the bag though.  I think the new camera did herself proud on this trip.  I always <used to> get soo soo frustrated trying to take pictures from the window of a moving vehicle because they always end up terrible—but not so much this time.  Looks pretty, doesn’t it?  Brett started getting worried that we were going to run out of fuel on the way up this pass, but we didn’t, and he claimed he likes to keep things exciting.  Here we are at the beginning of our hike/walk.  (I have to say hike SLASH walk because we were on a paved road the whole time, which was easier than a hike and actually quite nice.)  That little white and red symbol means this is the trail.  Every time we pass one, one or more of my children yell “We’re on the right trail!” We had a grand time walking along and throwing snowballs EVERY FIVE SECONDS.  (Except me, because I don’t like getting cold.) Brett was to blame for a lot of the snowball throwing.  Notice what he’s holding in his hands (and mouth)?  It’s gummi bears.  We find them to be indispensible when hiking(/walking) with children.  “I’m tired!”  “Here—have some more gummi power!” It was lovely.  Beautiful.  Perfect weather—the sun was very warm and it was so enjoyable. I saw a very sheer rock face and I told Hazel to see if she could climb it.    Then we cheered her on cause she’s an awesome climber.  Then we made her jump off it.  (Yes, since you point it out- we DO make our children climb things and jump from them for our entertainment very frequently.  Want to make something of it?) Then Jethro had to do it too. He needs a haircut.  But he’s cute. Ethne was there too. Running up the side of the mountain.  I’ll give you a nickel if you can spot Jethro.  (Just kidding because I have no nickels.  They don’t use nickels here.  They have a five rappen coin, but it’s not called a nickel.  I’m not sure it’s called anything.)Talmage is so cute.  If you look closely at his nose you’ll notice that it’s rather banged up.  It’s not because we made him climb something and jump from it.  It’s because first he got a bug bite right on the end of his nose, and then shortly thereafter fell while running on the pavement on got a scraped bloody nose.  But he’s still cute. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh (can you hear the heavenly hosts singing?)! I was there too!!! Yes I was. Perty. I love this kid.  SOOOOOOOOOOO much. Perty perty. Ethne was very cold on the way home because her sweater and  pant legs were so soaked from walking through and picking up a ton of snow.  (We warned her this would be the case about five hundred times.)  Also we ran out of gummi power. But we made it in quite good form actually.    Home again, home again, jiggedy jig.