An activity that we all love is to meet up with Aunt Lexi and cousin Cedar to go hiking! We took a day off school today to meet them at Rabbit Mountain Open Space which is really more of a stroll through the foothills than a hike, but it was very nice weather. Natalie received her belated birthday present from them and was so excited that she insisted on opening it before we could start the hike.
Everyone was also very excited to see Lola and volunteered to walk her. Torben was overly excited and was pretty difficult to deal with since we forgot his leash. Luckily Lexi had a long strap in her car which we tied to his collar and I tied the other end around my waist. He spent the majority of the hike getting his leash all tangled with Lola's and pulling me up the trail.
Asher was excited to bring his crawler RC car along, and even brought his spare battery to use. Unfortunately he didn't anticipate the batteries in the remote control going dead and he had to carry it about half of the hike.
Lexi is about 4 months pregnant and doesn't have the same energy she usually does, so the three older kids all took turns carrying Cedar (when he allowed us to put him is his pack). I eventually carried him in my arms so he could take a little nap and Leif took Torben from me. He wasn't going to put up with the pulling, so he figured out a way to get the strap around Torben's face the same way his gentle-lead works to keep him from pulling, and had a much easier time with him than I did. I told him that's why he is going to be a millionaire someday :)
We look forward to many more hikes and adventures this year!
The presents Natalie got were a color-yourself-tshirt and a science kit. As you can see she got right into both of them as soon as we got home. All the kids got a little crazy with it and Asher and Leif ended up blowing things up in the backyard with all the other kids excitedly watching.
