Hi Ho the Cheerio, A hiking we will go

So we went on this little hike one evening last week.
Correction - We went on this cross country trek last week! Lol!

Yes, there were lots of hills like this...and steeper

 We had a beautiful day last week, felt just like Fall. Even Caleb said so. That evening after dinner we were all ready to get outside. Pretty much thinking on the same line, Ricky and I decided to take the kids hiking at the state park just up the road from us.

We have done this before with them. But, we usually just went down one of the trails a little ways, before turning back and returning to our car.

This time, we didn't discuss it or anything, but we just kept walking. It was so nice outside and the kids were finding frogs, grandaddy long legs, mushrooms and listening to other animals run through the leaves.

When we got to the top of the park we posed for some photos.

Happy Hikers

 I attempted to give Ricky a "wet willy" in this photo and before my finger was able to escape his ear, he snagged it to give it the infamous "Milk the mouse". UGH!

And so our couple shot.....

Turned into this....lol. Yes, Milking the Mouse HURTS BAD! Proof on camera that I'm a victim of domestic violence :)
Family function at its best.

Sometimes I have no words

ANYWAY ~ we got back to hiking and the trail was going down. Down, down, down. We were trotting along, Laney holding Ricky's hand and Caleb helping me along for most of the way. After about an hour I started wondering where the trail led to. I just assumed our trail leader, aka ~ RICKY, knew where he was going. 

WRONG! 

So, finally I ask him if he has taken the trail this far before. No, he says. 

Somewhere along the way (as the sun was beginning to sink in the sky) I got kinda panicky. I looked to my fearless husband, and he whips out his phone frantically and locates us on a GPS satellite or something like that. He says it looks like its just "up the way". Yeah, up was right. What goes down must come up. All the hills we enjoyed walking down on the first half of the hike we made up for as we went further on the trail. Up UP UP ! 

Love 

Cuties taking a break on some out door carpeting 

I have to say the kids did really well. When all was said and done we found out the trail was a little over 3 miles. Which doesnt sound like far unless it is up and down huge hills for 3 miles and you are 4 years old. 

We ended up walking out as the sun nearly sat, over 2 hours after we started, with the kids being carried on our backs. 

Other than thinking for a moment or two that we would have to be rescued by helicopter (not really, ok, well maybe for a second) it was a fun little adventure.

Forrest Family

So now we know just how long that trail is. I think we will do this again soon, but this time we will know to leave ourselves just a bit more time and to plan in a snack break or two along the way. Oh and Laney would recommend wear good fitting shoes because hers were slipping on her feet a little and she had a sore place on her foot by the time we got home.

But we enjoyed the beautiful day out in nature, and together.

All in all we saw tons of grandaddy long legs, alot of moss and mushrooms, 9 frogs (although Laney says she saw 11 :) and 4 deer....oh and one milked mouse that still smarts thinking about it...haha!