Take a Hike!

So, on Saturday we decided to set out to find the perfect location to have our family pictures taken next month. For Mother's Day my siblings and I gave my mom a card telling her that we'd booked a photo session with a photographer that I love (while my brother & his family will be in town). A mountain photo sounded perfect to my mom, so we went looking.

And, since we would be looking anyway, we decided to make an afternoon of it and bring a picnic along. We started out by hiking (part of) White Pine Trail up Little Cottonwood Canyon, since we'd been there before & knew how beautiful it is. It has been way to long since I've gotten up into the mountains. It was therapeutic for me...the smell of the pine, the sound of the river, beautiful summer wildflowers in bloom (can't believe I only took one picture of them), and the warm sun on my face. I loved it. And, of course, it was a new experience taking Noah hiking. The last time that we went he was in the backpack.

Naturally, Noah set the pace of our hike. He trudged along as fast as a little boys legs can go. I kept trying to get a picture of him hiking, but as soon as I'd pull out the camera he'd put his face down so that his hat hid it, or cover his face with his hand. So, I gave up on that after a while.

It was lots of fun hiking with Noah though - he found a stick to carry along the way, and would stop periodically to point out bugs. Now and then he'd trip on a rock and fall down, but he'd get back up and keep going. In fact, in a couple of spots I'd lift him quickly over a more challenging area in the trail and he'd scream "SELF!" and promptly turn around, hike back down to where I'd picked him up from, and hike back up on his own. Yes, Mr. Independent is two. And, although it can be a tiny bit frustrating at times to wait for him to "do it self!" - I love it too.

Here's the spot where we threw down our blanket for a picnic. It was a nice picnic, but unfortunately I think it's also when Lincoln's arm got a bit of a sunburn as he let his left arm hang out of the backpack the entire picnic (as you can see here).

Here is Noah enjoying some yummy, cold watermelon balls. And, if you look closely you can see his flip-flop tan line too :)

And, of course, our good natured little Lincoln was an angel the entire time...



Here I am showing Noah the river and explaining to him that he needs to hold my hand while we put our feet in the water.

This picture looks like Mark is torturing Noah by dipping him in cold river water. Nope. Noah loved the water...he just didn't want us to hold (or even touch) him while he was in it. "Seeeelf!"


Noah insisted that he could see sharks in the water. Aaahh...to have the imagination of a 2-year-old.
I will have you know that after a few hours of hiking, and no luck on finding a good photo location, we headed back to our Jeep where the kids both promptly fell right to sleep. Then, after driving a few miles further up the road we found the absolute perfect spot to do our pictures...right off the road too! I'll be sure to post a link to the pictures after we get them done next month and you can let me know what you think about the spot we found! I think you'll like it...