In Our Element

For the moment, I will feign ignorance and pretend that it won't be snowing later this week. We took our first hike into the woods, and that means spring is here, no turning back! Monday was absolutely gorgeous, so we took off as soon as Lucian woke up and made for the bluffs. Audrey was a pro in her backpack; she was awake the whole hour-plus that we were out, but that girl didn't make a peep. She's been a lover of the outdoors since day one. 

We had our doubts about Lucian's ability to complete the hike. See, our hiking path goes downhill a long way first... then the uphill hike comes at the end. Not ideal, but it's worth it for the discovery potential. Caves? Check. Waterfall? Check. Railroad track? Check. Lake? Check. Old brick oven? Check. I could go on, but you get the drift.

Anyways, Lucian has never made the whole hike on foot before. He's not exactly a ball of boundless energy like his brother, and he gets pretty stubborn when he doesn't want to do something, so we weren't sure how it would go.

He LOVED it.

He threw rocks, hauled sticks, jumped over puddles, and was generally much more daring than I was ready for him to be. On the way back up, we sang the Alphabet Song from Super Why over and over and over... and over... and over again, per his request, and that got him all the way to the top! What a trooper!

Max would have never come out of the woods if we didn't make him. All winter, he pointed out the head of the trail every time we drove by it. "Those are our hiking woods!" he would exclaim. He was beside himself when we told him we'd finally get to go exploring again. This was not a bit surprising. What did surprise us was that our kid who won't sit still for a picture to save his life suddenly wanted to pose for photo ops every 20 feet!

"Take a picture of me! I'm Jesus carrying my cross up the hill!"

 
Take a picture of me with my bow and arrow!"

"Take a picture of me sitting on this tree stump! Take a picture of me walking the plank! Take a picture of me! Take a picture of me!" Who is this kid??

The crowning jewel was, for me, the fact that we got a decent self-portrait of all five of us together. Sure the photo quality is poor, but look at those adorable children! And look, you can see all of their eyes! And there are no fingers in noses! Score. Double score.

Look out world, we're out of hibernation!