Hike

My parents have been visiting, so I haven't had time to update this as often as I'd like. It's been good to see them, though, and the kids are loving having them around.



On Wednesday, I took all 3 kids and the dog on a hike. I do this hike with friends most Wednesday mornings, but the 2 older kids have never done it with me and really wanted to see where we go. I take the little one with me in the backpack each time, so it was old hat for her. She did get to walk part of it for the first time, though, which she thought was very cool. It's about a 3 mile loop and I hadn't planned on doing the whole thing, but the big kids really wanted to see it all, so we headed up the hill. We took our time - it normally takes me a little over an hour and we finished it in about 2 hours - got to see lots of flowers, birds, and the tadpoles. My son loved the little waterfalls in the stream on the way back (he's been obsessed with waterfalls since before he could talk).


I usually take the dog with me when we do this hike and he does fine, but usually really lags on the downhill sections. This time, the kids were in front of me and he absolutely had to keep them in his sight at all times. He did not like it when my son got ahead of us and wasn't easily visible and pulled to get to him, which is really unusual. I haven't seen this protective side of him towards the kids before - not overt, just wanting to keep track of them and keep them close.It was interesting to see him react so differently on a hike he's done so many times before.