We went on a little trip down to Missouri for my Grandpa Cook's funeral. Even though it was a somber event, we decided to make it a little fun along the way.
(And all these pictures were from my phone-not too bad!)
We stopped at a little pull over spot so I could feed Simon and the kids could run around a little.
They kept hollering "BEST TRIP EVER". So funny.
On the way back home this rock river bed was completely full. It had rained all that morning so its good we stopped on the way there and not on the way back home!
Zethan is always doing his own thang!
Daddy and his Simon boy. Simon was just so happy to be free and outside!
Climbing the river banks.
Some more posing.
Simon loves the grass! And the dandelion weeds. I mean flowers.
Then we stopped at a State Park to do some hiking. It had these wooden board walks and railing. So that was nice. It made the ups and downs a little easier.
One
I hiked with Simon strapped on. Its kind of a process to get the big fella in there!
Two
Three...Almost in there
See all those steps!! Simon thought it was just great walking with the air in face and the kids running ahead of him. The wrap is super duper comfy to wear actually, but it seemed to me that it wouldn't be comfortable facing out like that for him. But he seemed to love every second!
More posing and more steps.
Then we thought we could take a shortcut back to the beginning and not have quite so many steps to go back up. But turns out it was just a little round about thing that you didn't even need to hike. We got some extra exercise in!
Way across there you can see some old rock ruins. It was a castle type thing built a long time ago and then it got destroyed by a fire. That is where we started and then hiked down down down and around and around.
This sign was at the beginning of the descent. I would not classify myself as being in good physical condition and was a little leery of actually attempting this, but alas, my dear Husband said, "aww come on, it'll be fine" And he was right. We all made it. Titus has boundless energy and was always twenty steps ahead-that is why there are hardly any pictures of him. Lillie got a little tired sometimes. Zethan got super tired and Matt carried him on his shoulders a few times. Zethan even said as we were about done, "Can we NEVER come back here again. Too many steps"
Simon enjoyed it though and after I got a second wind it was really not too bad actually! The weather was excellent!
There are the steps that were the beginning of the down down down hike.
Then there is Matt looking at the water that was at the bottom.
It was a giant spring. Gallons and gallons of water were just rushing downstream and it was just coming from the ground. Pretty awesome.
More walking.
A neat little walk through a rock wall path.
Lillie snapped this picture for us.
Then we found a little cave. At this point Zethan was getting a bit grumpy and not walking to walk. We told him he could just sleep in the little cave and we'd pick him back up on our way home the next day. He wasn't so sure about that but thought if he did have to do that, that "the turtle that was a nice turtle-the one that was looking at me would come be my friend" (We saw lots of turtles sun bathing along the river)
Taking a break from the wrap.
I put him back in facing me because he was getting tired and sure enough he fell asleep as we hiked.
Then it was on with the rest of our trip. Lillie was a super star traveler. She just had her head phones and ipod and hardly made a noise.
It was a nice little get away.
