Everything is More Fun With Friends!

Everything is more fun with friends - especially hiking.  We've been fortunate enough to go on a couple of hikes lately with friends from church.  The kids have had a blast and we've noticed they don't really complain much when they've got friends along on the trails. 

A couple of weeks ago we went to Grey's Arch with the Rose family.  These girls were such sweeties!  And they were just as willing to trudge through the wet and muddy creek as my kids were - definitely not afraid to get dirty.  It was a pretty hot afternoon for a hike - and a pretty long hike at 3 1/2 hours.  But with the promise of pizza at Miguel's afterwards, we all made it! 

I blame Chris and Ben for the length of our hike.  Once we made it to the arch, we had to decide if we would return the way we came, or go on a bigger loop to get back.  We let the dads decide.  Right after that point, the hike got hard for about an hour.  Hard, like straight up out of the bottom of the Gorge.  At that point, I was thinking letting the guys pick the path wasn't the best idea.  But then the last hour was much easier walking along a ridge that was beautiful, so it was worth it! 

Yesterday we went up to Natural Bridge using the Rock Garden and Battleship Rock Trails.  Tom wanted to take a bunch of kids from his Wednesday night church class.  The three of us went with 12 kids and they had a great time! 

  

The girls...

 

The boys (minus Sam)

Sam had felt a little sick before we left, but didn't have any real symptoms so we didn't think anything of it.  About 15 minutes into hiking he started getting worse.  He got a pretty strong fever - the poor kid, his head was burning up and his arms were ice cold.  He was miserable.  At one point Chris even had to carry him. 

 

When we reached the top we decided it would be better for me to go down the easier main trail with Sam, Izzy and the twins.  That way we could get back to the car quickly so Sam could rest, and we wouldn't slow up the older kids hiking the rougher trail down.  We made it a competition and the little ones loved it!  They practically ran down the entire trail getting done 15 minutes before the big kids.  Then they got to sit in the back of the car and wait for the others while watching a movie.  Good times! 

It was a lot of fun to go on a hike with all those kids.  And we sure got a lot of funny looks from other hikers as they counted all the kids with us.  Sam came home and took a 3 hour nap.  He woke up for about 2 hours, and then slept for 15 hours straight not waking until 11:30am Sunday morning.  Thankfully the fever was gone and he was feeling much better.  I'm sure he'll enjoy the next hike much more!