Saturday's Walk on the Parkway

Yesterday was another wonderful day for us. We had a buddy spend the night on Friday, so our Saturday morning cleaning spree was temporarily suspended so the kids could play with their friend. Starting the day off with that good of news meant that the rest of the day went along splendidly!

After his mom came and picked him us, we decided to go for a family hike along the parkway - it's one of our favorite places to walk, and we decided that the next time we go there we will place a letterbox at our favorite site - the swing.

This swing is such a fun place! It hangs about 25', so the arc it swings in is wonderfully large! I am always afraid of one of the kids falling out of the swing while it is 15' in the air with them sitting in it, but they all giggle and squeal and smile ear-to-ear when they are on it. (I love Teagan's smile in this one! She was giggling like a 5 year old when her daddy gave her a great big Underdog! It was so fun to watch!) Tig and I had fun pushing Owen and he had a ball "hitting" both of us as he swang!Daddy went with Emmett because Emmy really wanted to swing after seeing the older three having such a fun time! After a few minutes of swinging with Emmy, daddy had to take a turn by himself so he could catch some real air :-)

I was so glad I had brought along my camera because I got some fun ones of us at the swing, some along the hike, some while they were climbing trees, and some good ones of the kids and their expressions.

They had so much fun shimmy-ing up their favorite climbing tree near the swing. And all along the river we would stop every so often to let them throw some stones into the water. We challenged each other to throw farther, daddy tried to teach Teagan to not throw like a girl, and as the larger boulders would thump into the river, Emmy would be looking on, smiling, and covering his ears.We saw lots of evidence of wildlife - especially beavers - along the river. Daddy and the kids thought it was really awesome. They even brought some of the wood chips home with us...but I told them that they were covered in beaver spit, so they had to stay outside.We also found (the hard way, thanks to Tig's knee) a tree that grew thorns to help keep its bark on. But after the bark has fallen off, the pokes still remain, just waiting for some unsuspecting knee to come and try to kneel on them.Here are some of the shots of us. The kids each found themselves a new walking stick that will stay in the car, waiting for us to go on more hikes. Tig's actually has beaver bites in it, which is why she chose that particular stick. I am excited for us to go on a lot more hikes - we always have so much fun when we go, and we are all in need of the exercise! What a wonderful, laid-back, cozy, relaxing day it was!