Mountain Hike

This is the picture I sent to Michael. I was trying to brag that we were here and he was still stuck in Florida. Sucker

After Ellie's party, we all stayed the night. The next morning (Thursday) we went for a short hike up a canyon somewhere. It was threatening to rain the whole time we were there, but we got lucky and it only started to sprinkle just as we were leaving. Tami was the one who had the idea to do the hike and she did all the research on where it was and what it would be like. I was really glad when she said we should go on a hike. I love hiking! And it had been a while since I'd actually been in the mountains. The hike was supposed to be super short, really easy, and have a waterfall at the end. 

Gorgeous.

The drive was gorgeous. The hike was short, but I wouldn't say it was super easy. It was uphill and pretty rocky at the end. Ivan and Ellie did great climbing over things. Ivan was like a mountain goat set free in his natural habitat. He traversed that mountain hike in about 2 minutes. Charlotte and I were a little slower. It took us about 7 minutes to get to the end. And I was huffing and puffing by the time we got there. 

Charlotte had to carry her water the whole way up the mountain. She did pretty well hiking for a bit, but she needed a lot of extra help when it came to the rocky part. 

Her cheese face is the cutest! She was pretty proud to be on top of this giant rock. 

The waterfall was really cool too. It was more like a sheet of water coming straight down the face of the mountain. and it pooled into a little stream right where we were standing. There was lots of rock climbing, digging in the sand, throwing rocks into the water, and yelling. The waterfall was a little loud, so Ivan took that as an open invitation to be as loud as he could. 

We made it to the top!

There's the waterfall, behind Ivan. This is the only picture I actually got off the waterfall. 

A helicopter flew over and all the kids started waving like crazy.

Throwing rocks.

More cheese faces!

After we were all done with the hike, we still had more time to kill before nap time. This meant a trip to Scheels!

Charlotte was so scared of this bear. She cried the whole time she was near it. guess it is pretty scary. 

And she thought the skunks were dogs. She immediately went over to them and started petting them. Ivan kept saying "PU!" over and over again.  

After I was done walking around, we went to a play place and let the kids run around even more. Charlotte got stuck at the top, figures, and Ivan wasn't a good listener. We didn't last long there at all. Then we headed back to Tami's for a nap. The kids went to sleep really fast, and so did I. I heard my phone ring a couple times while I was sleeping and was just too exhausted to get up and get it. Three hours of a nap later, I finally checked my phone. One of the calls was my sister and the other was Michael. I called back and he asked when I would be getting to his grandparents house. He said he was going to go to bed after we got off the phone so he could get a really early start on his drive back starting Friday. So I headed to Grandma Wampler's and got there at about 5 or 6. Ivan walked in first and just as he rounds the stairs and gets into the living room I hear him whisper "I found dad." What?! I was confused. Then Michael peeked his head around the corner and I about dropped Charlotte! My first reaction was, "you tricked me!" And I cried. And Ivan laughed. And Charlotte ran away. Haha. She didn't want to have anything to do with Michael. Ivan was so excited to see his dad. I missed the first look, but managed to get a good picture of them hugging.

Surprise!