Thursday in the Mountains, Hiking!

Thursday was our family portrait and hiking day.  We all dressed up in our matching shirts that Mom and I made and took a family portrait out on the deck  I will be posting those in the next post. But here are some more of the lovely view from the deck.





  Then we went on a hike to Grotto Falls.

  It started out ok, with everyone climbing up the hill at their own pace.  It sure felt like more than 1.4 miles to me!  The path was pretty good, but it had rained that morning so it was really muddy.  Jon had accidentally worn his crocs instead of sneakers so Dad took Jamie in the carrier.  This ended up in a minor almost disaster as no one told dad that the carrier wasn't a backpack and he couldn't remove it on his own.  Leading to a little fall for James and a small bump on the head.  He was ok, and didn't fall down the mountain or anything and wasn't injured so it all worked out ok, and now Dad knows he needs help to remove the baby!

The falls were gorgeous, and it was really neat that you could walk right behind them!  We tried to take another family picture in front of the falls, but with all the people there, and the noise and wet they didn't turn out very good.  After we had rested at the top for a while, it was time to head down.

 Chris had gotten a bit of a head start, and Jonas had gotten it into his head to follow him... by himself.  When we realized he was missing, Kristy and Hannah ran down the trail looking for him.  The rest of us followed at a much slower pace behind.  Hannah finally caught him with just .2 miles of the trail left to go. Luckily he didn't get to the exit and disappear into the unknown!  once we all made it down to the bottom, we were all exhausted so Dad took us out for a late lunch/early dinner at No Way Jose's.  It is GOOD food.  We all ate to much before heading home and crashing.  It was a good exhausting day.

i am dealing with pictures from 3 different camera, so the pictures may be a bit mixed up.