Family Hike

Last year around this time, I decided I wanted to start getting healthy and the way I was going to do that was that I was going to hike.  For those of you who don’t watch Sex and the City, I’m here to inform you that hiking is walking.

I started taking Jake to the park on the weekends and we’d “hike” meaning we’d walk the trails and he’d look for the little colored circles on the poles to tell us which path we were on.

This year, the bug hit me again.  The minute it was warm enough to spend more than 5 minutes outside, I knew it was time to start hiking again.  Plus I needed to get some “off day exercise” in.  I joined Orangetheory Fitness a while back (more on that later) and find that I need to take every third or fourth day off so I don’t get burnt out.  But I’m also on this “closing my Move Ring” kick, so I knew I wanted to get outside today and get moving.  I asked the boys if they wanted to join me and off we went.

Originally I had intended to go back to our old standby park for our hike, but on a whim I decided to google walking trails near me.  I found another park that was right across from the soccer field Jake plays on sometimes, so we decided to check it out.

We gave Jake the option of doing ½ a mile, 1 mile, or 1 ½ miles.  He said 1 ½ miles with no hesitation and went clomping into the woods in his boots.

It wasn’t long before we came upon the creek Jake’s school is named after, so of course we had to explore.

It was such a beautiful day and really not even that chilly.  It was in the upper 40s and, when we were in the woods, there was very little wind.  Jeff kept commenting on how quiet it was even though we were inside the city.  It was very calming and peaceful.

I think Jake thoroughly enjoyed himself today.

Especially when I asked if he wanted to go on a “treasure hunt” (geocaching).  I loaded up the app and we started walking.  Before we knew it, we got the alert that we were getting close!  In fact, we passed the location up before we knew it and had to double back.  After looking around for a minute, we spotted something in the tree.

Jake was SO EXCITED when we found the cache!  He was even more excited when I told him he could take a small toy from the container.  Not knowing we would be geocaching, I hadn’t brought anything with me to replace in the container but, Daddy to the rescue!, he put in a quarter.  Who doesn’t like finding money??

A little further along, we stumbled on this:

It was breathtaking.  Now, I’m all about the ocean and the beach, but there’s something soothing about a creek with trees and rocks, even if it is during the yucky cold season when everything seems dead.  I can’t wait to come back here when it’s all green and gorgeous outside!

Jeff and I never have pictures of us together since we are always the ones taking the pictures.  Since Jake is 6 now, I thought he was old enough to be responsible and not break my phone.  I set up the picture for him and told him what to do.

The result:

Not bad!  The ones he took after that weren’t terrible, but mommy didn’t feel particularly flattered by the angle he used so we’ll just pretend they don’t exist.

I’ve been meaning to take pictures of Jake in his 2030 t-shirt while he was in Kindergarten so we have them to compare with when he’s a senior.  I think we might end up coming back here for that photo shoot!

It was an awesome way to spend some quality time with my family on Saturday and I can’t wait to do it again!