Friday, March 20, 2009

my day with an eight year old

This is Shaw:
Shaw is eight. And he is enjoying his last day of spring break today. He is a superstar Cub Scout. I found out today that he learned to ride his two wheeler in Kindergarten and never fell down once! (How does that happen?) Now he does all kinds of amazing bike tricks. And he is my very cool nephew.
This is Shaw Butte:
It doesn't look very big, but it's a photographic illusion. It is big enough to have radio towers on it. And big enough to give us all some tired knee joints after we climbed over it.
This is Shaw on Shaw Butte:

This is Curtis and Lesa. (my brother and sister-in-law):
Curtis is my baby brother. That fact is not important to the story of our activity today, I just thought I'd point that out. He has grown up to be taller and cooler than most of the rest of us.
We had a fun day hiking around. Shaw Butte is not the prettiest mountain around, but it is a nice urban hiking trail. The loop is 3.6 miles long, up and over then around the mountain through the valley back to the starting point. The morning started overcast, but by the time we got out of the car, it cleared right up to a bright, clear, sunny, hot morning. I don't think Shaw got tired one bit. Lesa claims she was tired, but I don't see it in the picture. It's always fun to spend time together and catch up on family news. Thanks for coming and spending the morning with me, guys!
Oh, we saw 2 snakes on the trail. Yes, that's right. TWO DIFFERENT SNAKE SIGHTINGS! ON THE TRAIL! VERY CLOSE TO WHERE MY FOOT WAS! There are always warnings about rattlesnakes out and around this time of year. I don't think they were rattlesnakes, although I don't claim to be knowledgable in the snake department. I know they were medium-ish in size and they both ran away very quickly (thank you very much) and they didn't rattle at us. If we had not been hiking with a child, there may have been some freaking out type screaming.

5 comments:

Lauri said...

Another fun hike! Is that the one you took me on? I think it's starting to get too hot for hiking. Hopefully it cools down and I can get a few more in.

Suzanne Barker said...

Just got caught up on your blog, Cynthia. Very entertaining as usual! I enjoy all your posts, photos and updates. It's fun seeing photos of people I have heard you talk about. And your family dinner just sounded like the best!

Anonymous said...

Fun times!

The Riding Family said...

I liked how you did the post...Shaw on Shaw Butte!

I Am Boymom said...

I am amazed at how much you hike! I feel like it's effort to hike my butt up the stairs everyday...guess I'd better start working on a better plan.

We have at least one snake at our house every year as our house is right on the edge of the desert. I despise snakes and they seriously freak me out!

Shaw is a cutie and if he's like my little guy, he didn't even break a sweat running up the mountain. How do they do that?

By the way, shameless blog promotion coming...I am giving away 4 tickets to Disney on Ice for APril 9th, stop by and leave a comment if you are interested and pass this on to anyone else that might wanna try to win! Thanks!