Hiking, hiking

On the aforementioned hike, with Alli and Jana. Very determined.

(see also: chose his own outfit, wouldn't give up the hat)

I'm going hiking...

A couple of weekends ago Alli and I took E for a hike (Ray was at work). He was so excited to hike, and he did do some of the flats (at toddler speed). The hike ended by NCAR, which has some perfect climbing boulders.



E was so excited to hike, I don't think he realized how much fun climbing was. Yet, he did.

(Ray, Alli, and Jana took E again last weekend. He hiked even more, and has the busted up knee to prove it. JUST enough to qualify for a bandaid, probably for the next year or so, please.)

You say it's your birthday?

Knowing that this was our last chance to do it this way, we gathered some of our (and E's) friends to celebrate his birthday. At a Belgian bar. Yes, this plot was hatched a week earlier at a different restaurant happy hour. What?

Anyway, he had fun.

Seriously, none of those are for me?
Nick and E play Angry Birds on Ray's phone.


The hot wheels and Cookie Monster presents made things interesting. Throw in some massive chocolate brownie and the party starts getting out of hand.
See what I mean?
Ack! Let me back in! The brownie made Dad go zombie!

Camping: Buffalo Creek

Jana has kindly provided me with her pictures of our camping trip a couple of weeks ago. With that, we are ready to ROLL (the ball pun I'm making here? See below.)

Our camping weekend started out chaotic. Ray was going to be home Friday early, then he wasn't, then he was, then he... wasn't. Saturday morning, we're packing up, and Alli calls to say that they abandoned the original campground for its complete lack of level space and headed to Buffalo Creek Recreation Area instead. Throw in some horrid cell signal, the fact that Jimmy had already gone up and ended up camping alone, and this could have been bad. Fortunately, Alli and Isaac gave decent directions quickly and then went to fetch Jimmy. Jimmy, of course, enjoyed a mellow evening of solo camping and was lazing by the river. So, all was good.

We got up around lunchtime. Everyone else was set up and on epic hikes, rain was threatening, so we set up camp quickly. Ray and Eamon worked together.
Jimmy showed up with Sadie just as the rain hit, and Sadie kept Eamon entertained while we got the rest set up.

Sometimes, it takes a whole village for two parents to eat dinner.
(Those of you who know Alli can see why this cracks us up. She so kindly took Eamon for a bit and ended up running buffalo daycare.)
These little kids loved Eamon. They wanted to touch him, know how old he was, etc., etc. It's good to be bigger than someone, I think.

Efrain's may be forgiven their somewhat subpar food last week just for the buffalo.

ps: Points to Ray for catching those eyelashes with an iphone!

In case anyone was wondering what to get Eamon.....here's a suggestion. He's still got the love for the drums.

(okay, kidding on the present suggestion, particularly since I'd rather we stick with the neighbors', actually...)

Isaac did try to help with the fact that Eamon wanted to do the kick pedal (watch his feet, he is trying).

Thanks to Alli (I think?) for filming this!