South Hills Hiking

First we did the mini-hike to Ross "Falls"

Then we found another hiking trail and followed it for about a mile up through the sage brush covered hills. This hike wasn't very exciting, but good for the kids because they learned patience, about switch backs, the requirements for being a leader, and what horse poop looks like.

 And then we found a very shallow stream to play in. Claire loved stomping across the bridge, until I let her get in the water. Then she wanted to dive in with the big kids and was mad at me for not letting her. When we were done we practically had to drag Ruth and Will away from he stream and rocks. It was a lovely afternoon made all the more lovely because we were blessed with cloud cover and a cool breeze.

I was also proud of Ruth because she saw a soda can someone had thrown under the bridge and she picked it up so we could throw it away. This summer has been the best so far, I love being outdoors with my family, there really is nothing like it.

Outdoor fun

Working on the alphabet with Will. As we sang the song they jumped on the letter. His new favorite letter is "P." My favorite part of this activity was that after we jumped the alphabet one time he said "What about this?" and drew a lower case "L" which he knows because of his name! So then next to all the upper case letters we wrote all the lower case letters. 

And here we are playing with ice on a really hot afternoon. Claire loved taking everyone else's ice and sucking on it. Ruth and Will enjoyed drawing pictures or letters and then watching them evaporate. We've been having lots of fun as a family recently too, mostly because Brad and I are trying to be more willing to go outside even if it's hot to play games or just push the kids on the tire swing. The other night we came up with a make-shift bean-bag toss. And it's not so bad in the backyard because of the trees.