So I took an extended holiday break…

Elin sleeping through the hike.

…yes, yes, I know the holiday season ended almost 6 weeks ago.  What can I say, other than I just got out of the habit of blogging.  I’m going to try to do better, but no promises. 

I want to write today about our new family hobby:  hiking!  Yep, we found a baby-hiker-backpack-contraption on Craigslist and hit the old dusty (and rocky and sometimes steep) trails.  I’m really proud of us because for the past two weekends we’ve ventured out to explore the mountains that we admire every day.  My major turning point was when I realized that hiking is just walking.  To me, the term “hiking” always sounded completely intimidating.  It meant scaling boulders and shuffling along the edges of steep cliffs, until I realized that it could also just mean walking.  You don’t have to start with the cliff shuffling, you can work up to that.  After two weekends, we’re not quite to the Grand Canyon North Rim to South Rim hike yet, but here’s where we are and I’m really proud of it.

Week 1:  Pima Canyon  to the Dam – 6.4 miles round trip – 850’ elevation change – approx. 3.25 hours

Week 2:  Seven Falls – 8.2 miles round trip – 650’ elevation change – approx. 4.25 hours

I put the arrow here to point out the people to give a sense of scale.

I swear we didn't plan on matching.  We're not "that couple".