Hiking Saddle Rock

First of all, thank you so much to my bloggy friends who've given me their opinions on my Master Bedroom paint below. THANK YOU! It has helped me so much!!! If you haven't visited that post yet, please do, and please leave me your opinion.


Yesterday we took advantage of the beautiful spring weather and hiked Saddle Rock with some other moms and kids from the Wenatchee Moms group. It was SO fun. Saddle Rock is at the south end of Wenatchee, and you can see it from almost anywhere in town. It's a 3.3 mile hike, and it is STEEP. But, we had an awesome time, got some great exercise, and had fun together. This year I've committed myself to doing more things like that because, quite frankly, I forget to leave, and just end up staying in my house for days... and it's not healthy for me or the girls. I just forget to socialize, and leave the house, and so I'm setting the goal to try to do something like that at least once a week. That way hopefully when poor Frank comes home from work I won't attack him with conversation the minute he walks through the door, haha. The girls did it by themselves really well, I was so impressed. The older they get, the more backpacking we want to do, so while they can't really carry their own sleeping bags and food on their backs yet, we want to start getting them used to hiking with day hikes, so training for backpacking will be easier, the older they get.

As I said, it was STEEP.

And beautiful. I never thought anything of spring until we moved here--it was just more rain. Spring here takes my breath away.

The sky was SO BLUE.

And, everything is turning GREEN. The intense colors God has put on our planet simply take my breath away sometimes. Especially during springtime in Wenatchee. Have I mentioned that?! :-)

I adore pine trees! They have such personality. And, they smell SO good. Of course, I couldn't smell them this time because my sense of smell is COMPLETELY gone due to the horrific cold we had last week. But I still loved looking at them.

They're so beautiful from the bottom too, this one was growing out of the side of the eroded hill...

The kiddos played in the roots for a while...

And got just a little dirty. :-) Debris, pretending to be a dog. Debris LOVES to hike.

Woohoo! The top. With one slimy puddle that probably will be dry in short order.

Yes, this photo IS as scary as it looks, haha!

Wenatchee, facing North.

And, facing South.

There really is NO rhyme nor reason to when my children are fearful, cautious, scared, ambitious, fearless, reckless, etc. They trade places with wild abandon that really keeps me on my toes. Debris was completely fearless up here, and Kiki was really cautious. I would have never called that, as usually Kiki tends to be more adventurous, and Debris follows her with the voice of reason. But, they do trade places often enough that I'm never quite sure who's going to be the old lady, and who's going to be Evel Knievel.

Yes, this was a scary as it looks, haha!

It was so fun, we had a great time, and it felt really good to get out and exercise in the fresh air, and have conversation with other moms.

On the way back down Debris led the pack...

And, we spotted the first Arrowleaf Balsamroot, my very favorite spring wildflower hereabouts that lights up the hillsides with, yep, you guessed it, an insane intense YELLOW. Perfection!

Have a great weekend!