Hiking with the kids

Marci remains sick. This is not a good situation. To compound the problem, all of our kids got out of school early today. Yikes! To help mitigate the situation I decided to take the kids on a short hike in the Superstitions. Nothing fancy, just a little trek along the Siphon Draw trail. We had a really fun time overall. We ended up hiking just under 4 miles round trip and everyone was just fine the whole time.

During the course of the hike I learned a couple of important things as well. Lesson the first: Let Sabrina set her own pace. I was walking with her the whole time and I thought I was going slow enough for her. However, as it got steeper on the trail I noticed that she was really breathing hard. She wasn't complaining or having difficulty keeping up, quite the contrary, it was just a lot of work for her. So, I slowed down even further and let her take a pace she was comfortable with and - Presto! - all of a sudden she is doing MUCH better. It was pretty cool. I don't mind walking that slowly either. If it means that my little girl is able to hike a little better and have better endurance without killing herself, I'm all for it. It is the journey that is important at this stage for her.

Lesson the second: I need to buy water bladders and backpacks for all the kids. It is ridiculous how often they need to stop for water. They can play outside, running around or riding bikes and scooters, ALL DAY and not even THINK about water. But, when we go on a hike, all of a sudden we have to be drinking pretty much non-stop. It's pretty dang annoying. Especially when you have 4 people and only two backpacks with water. Therefore, I gotta make the investment.

The thing I am most grateful for is how much my kids love hiking. They practically begged me to go once I mentioned the idea. They absolutely LOVE getting out on the trail and having fun climbing rocks and so forth. They are also all healthy and strong enough to be able to go hiking and the little kids are just getting better all the time. I don't even stress over Sabrina as much as I used to (although she still stresses me out on occasion).

So, I'm grateful for healthy, happy kids who love going out and cavorting about on hiking trails with me.

Truly good times.