We live less than 10 minutes from two different hiking areas, and less than 30 minutes from about a dozen others. I know we moved into our house just two days after Edith was born and she’s only seven months old, but I still feel silly that it’s taken us this long to go on a hike. The weather has been SO nice lately that we really have no excuse not to so yesterday afternoon we packed up and headed out for our first family of 5 hike. The term “hike” is used a bit loosely here – we were all just wearing jeans tennis shoes and we brought along the strollers, but we were still walking up a hiking path so I’m counting it. We definitely made the wrong choice in bringing the strollers for several reasons – first off the trail was steep and very switchbacked (we hiked from about 800 feet above sea level to all the way up to 1200) which was not conducive to strollering at all (not even with our beefy air-filled tires) and second of all we hardly even used them. Paul and Amelia walked 95% of the time on their own and I know if we hadn’t had the stroller they would have been fine to walk the entire way. Edith obviously couldn’t walk herself but we could have easily worn her in an ergo. We actually discussed in the parking lot which would be better and settled on the stroller since it would be easier for me to take photos if I didn’t have a baby carrier on. Next time we’ll know and we will definitely forgo the wheels!

I can’t even tell you how NICE it was up there on the hill… I am a sucker for the California golden hour glowy light, especially on a warm breezy day when the wild mustard flowers starting to bloom. My mom says you can tell I don’t have allergies because if I did I would hate them, but those mustard flowers are one my absolute favorite things about living in southern California. I know it’s spring when they come out and I just can’t get enough of their cheery yellow blossoms. I wish we could hike together every day.

LOVE the views from way up on the hills, next time I want to hike the other side of the hill so we can get the ocean view!

Both kids fell several times but are so resilient. I love that they just pick themselves up and keep on going, even though they were covered literally head to toe in dirt. Amelia at one point did a face plant and ended up with a completely dirt covered nose but wasn’t fazed by it at all. We kept cheering them on, telling them what a great job they were doing and how much fun hiking was… Amelia said at one point “I love hiking, we should go hiking again soon!” Yes… yes we should!

dirt covered and loving life…

One more list item… CHECK!