Busy as hell

Whew. Jeff is on holidays, and instead of going somewhere, we decided to stay home and give the house some much needed TLC. We've painted Jake's room (bright orange), and I've got the bathroom all masked off and ready to paint tomorrow.

We did manage to sneak out for some fun though. We left the house Thursday morning not sure where we were going, just knowing that we were going somewhere. Thanks to Jeff's handy dandy pocket pc, I find a place to go hiking called Grotto Canyon. So we drive on down. It's about an hour or so away. Since we didn't know what we were doing, we weren't all that prepared. Well, the kids were, but we weren't. So we take a three hour hike with no water for ourselves, and I hadn't eaten anything all day except a delicious boston cream donut. So, our hike, via pictures:

First of all, this is the kind of terrian that we were dealing with. Slippery, unstable rocks. And, again, since I was totally unprepared, I was wearing my ever so stylish and sexy crocs. Luckily, my ankles are still intact. Although, with my coordination, they should have broken halfway in.


This is Jake almost knee deep in the cold mountain water. About five seconds after this picture was taken, he started freaking out because he was freezing. Note his specialized mountain footwear. Badmom.com. He kept calling the stream that was flowing through the slippery rocks the prickle. Instead of trickle. Every minute or so, he'd say, "Mom, where did the prickle go?" And I'd point and say, "It's right there, silly". And he'd laugh and laugh.


Two of the three beautiful men in my life. If there is anything sexier than a man that is not afraid to hike with their baby in a sling, I don't know what it is. Beans seemed to love the hike. Hell, I would have loved it even more if I was being carried around like a king. Errr...queen.


One of the reasons we decided to go here, a painting done by native americans (forgive me if that isn't right) about a thousand years ago. It looked like a buffalo, or a horse, but didn't turn out that well in the picture.


Jake met a new friend, a chipmunk whose name is apparently also Jake. He got a kick out of him at first, but eventually told him that he had to go home and see his Mommy, and Daddy, and his girlfriend. I wanted to feed him really bad, but Jeff wouldn't let me. Although he didn't look like he had missed many meals.


It is a tough life for an 8 month old. Really, getting carted around, eating strained pears under a waterfall, it is truly a hard knock life.


This is coming back out of the canyon, but we still had a bit of a hike to the car. It was at this point that Jake decided that he couldn't walk anymore, so I got to lug his butt up and down hills until we got to the car. I was pretty impressed that he made it as far as he did, and he didn't really complain at all. A promise of a popsicle helped him keep his sanity. He was disappointed when he found out I'd neglected to take a picture of the popsicle store.


So that was our little day trip. The kids did wonderfully, and despite our lack of provisions, we had a really good time too.