A Fun Hike With the Brown Family

The girls have been asking me for a while if we could hike up to a cross on a hill by our house. I knew it was a bit of a hike (3/4 mile each way including several hills), so I waited until Lee was home to make the trek. I also invited my friend Denise and her family. We had so many good pictures. I narrowed it down to nine to show you and I'm already wishing I had chosen a few others also. Oh well. Here's the first one: Tyler and Zachary Brown along with Morgan and Brynne at the trail head -- they had no idea what was coming! :) Denise snapped this great shot of Morgan. As you've likely noticed in other pictures, Morgan loves to "pose" for the camera. This is a great one, though. Thanks Denise. (By the way, I return the favor and get a great picture for Denise a little later on in the blog...)
And here is sweet Brynne. When we were almost to the cross Denise noticed poor Brynne had her shoes on the wrong feet. This observation was made after Brynne had a little fall and got a few minor scrapes. She was a trooper, though, and only needed carried for about 50 feet or so. (This is seriously a huge thing because Brynne loves to be held and carried so usually doesn't make it far on her own.)
Here's our family at the top of the hill. Our house is somewhere just to the left behind us. When we left Salmon (Idaho), I was worried because I knew no place would ever be so beautiful. Well, I'm quite pleased with the scenery here as well -- very beautiful.
I forgot that Lee also gave Brynne a ride for a bit, so make that 150 feet Brynne didn't walk. :)

Here's another picture of all the kids (except for Denise's little Shayla who turned two the day of the hike).
Not the best picture of me, but Denise looks great so I had to include this one. When I first went to take this picture, I had Denise's camera and I asked her if she thought it was too close. I was referring to the zoom, but she just thought I was asking if she thought I was holding the camera too close. She told me it should be fine, so I snapped the photo. The result was a close up of Denise's mouth. It was pretty funny. This picture was my second attempt (with a little less zoom)! :)
Here's the great picture I took to return the favor to Denise. Shayla was being cute (as usual), and Denise kept trying to get her to look up so she could get a picture. I took the camera from Denise and got down close to the ground and took this picture. I'm not a photographer so it was an absolute fluke that I got this, but I'm still pretty proud. It helps that the subject is so darn cute!
And there's no way I could take a hike through nature without taking a picture of the flowers for my mother. There were many beautiful ones, but these were some of my favorites.
I just realized I didn't post a picture of Paul (Denise's husband), but I promise he was there with us. (Sorry, Paul.) I also wish I had included a picture of the other parts of the trail. Most of the trail was out in the open across hills, but the first third of the hike took us through the wooded hillside. All was well with the kids leading the way until we discovered there were a gazillion silk worms along with their web of silk EVERYWHERE. We took a moment to flick the 5-10 worms off each of us, and then Lee grabbed a huge stick to take the lead. He waved the stick back and forth along the trail to try and get rid of most of the worms, but we had to walk fast because they were constantly dropping out of the trees. Between that and the stink bugs that were everywhere on the first part of the trail, I'm really impressed the kids kept going!

The funniest thing was when we looked up and saw a couple walking towards us going the opposite direction on the trail -- the guy was in front with a big stick wiping away silk worms. It was a funny sight to watch as he and Lee worked their way toward each other while swiping away with their big sticks! :)

I'm so glad my kids enjoy camping and hiking and other outdoor things. I'm waiting for the day when I can take them backpacking. And it's always extra fun when you can do it with friends!