Beautiful Hike

Alex and I took Matthew on a beautiful hike today.  It was pretty strenuous (10K to 12.5K in 2.5 miles) but it wasn't the elevation gain that was the challenge.  Normally Matthew loves to go hiking and he ends up sleeping in his backpack most of time... Not today!  He refused to eat breakfast and so an hour in to the hike he had a huge fit because he was hungry.

He didn't like the way I opened the granola bar wrapper so he screamed for over 39 minutes --- all he would do is yell the word cookie.  It was actually kid of funny. 

Eventually we got him a different "cookie" to eat and he spent the next 40 minutes slowly eating it.  It was also at this point that we had realized that we had walked a mile past our trail turn off!  Ugh!

Matthew loves my hiking poles and insists on dragging them with him everywhere!

The views were so expansive and the pictures really don't do it justice!

So pretty but was hard to appreciate given that our son suddenly be afraid of bee and was now screaming "BEE!! BEE!!  NO NO NO! NO BEE!" every five seconds as we were hiking. 

Eventually he got tired of yelling and fell asleep with his face buried. 

If we weren't all sweaty and Matthew was smiling this could have been our holiday card photo.  Alas. 

more pretty

Towards the end of the hike - looking down. 

One last pretty view. 

 Overall it was a good hike but a bit emotionally exhausting!  On a side note, we got word today that Petunia will NOT be a breeder.  Something to do with her knees not being right.  She is going to be fixed and then enter formal training.  Good Luck Petunia.