A Hiking We Will Go

Kaleb has been doing the advanced Pathfinder honors, and one of them is hiking.  He has to do 2 five mile hikes, 2 ten mile hikes, and one 15 mile hike.  Yikes.  That is a lot of hiking!!

The first hike Karis took him on with other folks around Black Bear Trail - it was the 10 mile hike.  There were a fair amount of kids out there, so it was a fun entertaining time as well as parents for Karis to talk to.  No pictures of course were taken to document said hike however.

The next weekend, Amy went on the hike with Kaleb - and of course Kieran and Heather were there.  It was a lovely time to chat as we walked and the weather was perfect.   We had some good laughs along the way, as part of the hike went into very muddy, swampy around of Wekiva State Park - so we very gingerly had to tip toe through in order not to sink up to our ankles in mud.  One point Kaleb mis-stepped and sank all the way up to the top of his hikers--while we all stood around yelling and laughing.  Good times :)

We are ready!  Kaleb and Amy used our water backpacks for the water and snacks - those have come in handy from our summer Southwest trip!

What was not so wonderful was at the end of the long tiring hike that we had gone the wrong way at the end.....and thus our 10 mile hike turned into a 13.5 mile hike.  Thankfully we figured it out in time but we didn't get back to the car until dark - driving out in the pitch black we were thankful that we hadn't been totally lost in the park in the dark. 

Hiking out as the sun was setting

The following weekend, we decided to hit the trails again and do the last long hike (and complete the extra mileage we needed to get the 15 mile hike in).  The weather was a high of 58 that day, so us wimpy Floridians bundled up.  Karis decided to come and bring Addison along to get her some exercise - thinking that he'd just turn around once she got tired -- but lo and behold she surprised us all by hanging in there - we didn't do the full 10 with her, but she did the first loop and back to the parking lot which was 5-6 miles.  Amy's hips were hurting that week so she ended up just doing the loop with Addison and Karis finished the second loop with the gang.  We've never done these hikes in the park before, and it truly was a lovely experience - we need to do it again sometime!

bundled up and ready to go!

Addison is our climber so she took every opportunity to climb trees as we went.  Thankfully this time the trail was entirely dry. 

At the playground afterwards, we made it!

No longer a baby, she definitely doesn't fit into the baby swing anymore!

In other news, about 10 days into January, Kaleb and Addison came down with a sore throat that turned into a fever.....and you guessed it, we had Covid.  Karis ended up getting it a few days after they did, and then Zachary decided to wait another 2 weeks before getting it (so annoying, should have just licked the spoon when the kids first got it so that everyone would be done with it!).  Amy oddly enough never got it either time - that or she was just asymptomatic.  Either way, thankful for that!  Thankfully it seemed to be mild and the family got over it very quickly without any lasting effects. 

It looks like a pregnancy test - but the super faint line at the bottom is Kaleb's positive result for Covid.

In other fun news, we have finished our laundry room remodel!  It is so awesome, what a transformation.  The original laundry room - it was a deep green with wallpaper on the walls (the white portions of the walls had floral wallpaper on it previously). 

And the new laundry room - new cabinets, new paint, new backsplash, new counters, new lights!  We are still doing a few decorative touches for the shelves on the left hand side, but that is still coming along.

Funky light fixture on the ceiling for fun