This morning I decided, perhaps against my better judgement I predicted, to take the kids hiking with me at a nearby short trail. Jesse wanted to work on the deck, and I thought it would be nice to grab a little exercise…and to my immense surprise, it was beyond successful!
Those are chocolate teeth in case you were wondering! Yes, I bribe them with ‘energy pills’, which I learned from my dear skilled nanny who first took care of Selah, Liz…who had the infinite wisdom of watching her mom raise eleven brothers & sisters! It worked like a charm for motivation and I would have never believed you prior to this morning, but I’m not kidding – there was not a SINGLE complaint and we did about 1.5 miles round trip! Lucky for me, Asher still fits semi-decent in the Ergo, so I convinced him to ‘ride’ mommy as a horsey up (to limit the time frame to at least a half day!), then he walked down all by himself.
I’m completely not kidding when I say that this is literally my PERFECT morning. (Well, I guess ‘perfect’ would have been Daddy joining us, but hey, a complaint-free kid hike is about as close to perfect as it gets). I can only hope it just gets better from here and I have some new favorite hiking buddies on my hands. If my kids love exercise and the outdoors, we may count this parenting thing a success (ok, I’ll add kindness, generosity, and gratefulness to the list…but that’s asking an awful lot! Ha! 😉).
Selah is well on her way. She even had to wait for us a bit! Can you find her here:
Not a bad morning view – we even counted 7 boats (in English & Spanish!), 4 platforms, and too many palm trees.
On our way down we found a great ‘echo’ spot and went in search of the secret garden on the way out…
Yep, it’s official, my favorite winter morning is with these two!
I think we’re almost ready to backpack with grandpa! (Ok, one successful hike might not constitute a whole trip, but let me bask in the dream a bit!)
Seeking Joy With the Wheelers 