Summer Hiking Awards

As the saying goes, "All good things must come to an end."  This hike was probably our last one of the season.  It was a very enjoyable family project this summer and although the weather is still gorgeous, the calendar and the schedule is not favorable to big chunks of time to allow for family hikes.  Sadness.

It's been wonderful to do this together-- just the two of us sometimes, but more often, working together to haul a sometimes more, sometimes less cooperative hoard of children through the mountains.  Now for a few awards I wish to give out.  Abe gets the award of "Hottest Pack Mule".  He agreed and has appreciated the nicer baby backpack carrier I insisted we get.  He carried Greta for many many hours this summer-- only to let me carry her so that he could carry Peter on his shoulders.  I'm telling you-- I find that very attractive!

Elinor has never been a fan of hiking.  Period.  She doesn't like it.  I tried to tell her that if she did it  more, then she might like it more.  NO SALE.
Her award is "That's My Story and I'm Sticking To It."
She doesn't like hiking.  She loathed it as a kid, and while she will come along and humor me, there are many other things she'd rather be doing.  And it's not because she isn't in good shape.  She's super strong and fit from all her swimming and water polo.  But it's not her thing.  I'm almost ready to respect that.

Peter receives the "Silence is Golden" award.  For the love of Pete!  Would you please just hike in silence!  He talks, complains, rages, cries, laughs, tells jokes, and cannot be quiet to save his life.
In his defense, we pushed him pretty hard to hike pretty far and besides the occasionally piggy back rides and long shoulder rides, he did it.  The lack of volume control was the price we paid.

Bethany gets the "Missing in Action" award.  I think she made it to exactly ONE family hike this whole summer.  She worked a lot.  She played a lot.  She is 17.  I think we missed the hiking boat with her.  Oh well.  We have other children.
Kidding.  Not kidding.

Greta is awarded the "Enjoy the Ride" award.  She was happily toted wherever we wanted to go for however long we wanted to go.  Rarely a peep of discomfort as long as we gave her her own water bottle to drink and play with.

I give George the "Tough Guy-Hawk Eye" award.  He is T-O-U-G-H stuff and he doesn't complain and he was the lizard spotter!  He has Clark's .gift for noticing the details and hearing and spotting the wild life.  George is a great hiker.  I foresee Clark and George hiking together a lot in the years to come.

Cannon gets the "I'm a DANCER, not a PACK MULE!" award.  Meaning, he'd come.  He'd be pleasant.  He'd catch lizards with the best of them.  But don't expect him to carry the back packs!
I'm giving him a hard time...he wasn't that bad, but it did seem like he got out of back duty fairly regularly.   In his defense, we often dragged him on a hike after a couple hours of ballet class, so he was probably pretty worn out before we even began.

Faith is given the "Little Miss Queen of the Trail" award.  She rocked every single hike we went on.  She never ran out of steam.  Never ran out of enthusiasm.  She was always up for any hike without any complaint and she and I even got in a couple of hikes just the two of of.  She was hiking perfection! 

Clark gets the "You're the Inspiration" award.  I think the summer of hiking was largely inspired by Clark's hiking expeditions before he left.  We very much enjoyed thinking of and talking about Clark while we hiked some of his favorite trails. 

Cannon (10) and George (8)

I feel as though I should give myself some sort of award for my summer of hiking.   So often I have something I want to improve on, but for various reason I find myself distracted, or said goal doesn't move high enough on the priority list to actually do it.  So I award myself the "Way to Make it Happen" award.  Hopefully next summer will be filled with even more hiking and the great outdoors, but I feel certain I will always look back at this summer with much gratitude and fondness for the grand little adventures we shared.