Friday, February 6, 2009

Chittlins!!! (Not the Edible Kind)

Those of you who know me, know that I always call my kidlets by weird names, such as kidlets, cornheads, and shitlins...I mean chittlins...lol!!!! Do you think they will grow up thinking that I didn't love them enough??? Just kidding!!!

Well, when our weather WAS so nice (yes, that is past tense!!), the chittlins and I did quite a bit of biking, hiking, and walking/running around. I did that without my kidlets too, but I have to look like I am a great mommy, so I will only post about what I do with the cornheads...lol!!! (Remember that post I did about keeping it real???)For some reason, the kidlets like to show me up, and they run up the trail.....and back down the trail....up the trail....and back down the trail....up the trail....you get what I am saying right???? That they joyfully run laps around me, like the steep incline is nothing to them. Like it doesn't hurt their hips, or their knees, or their ankles, or their feet, and Eric was doing it with his backpack on. Did I mention that it weighed 15 pounds??? I tell you what.....Then, as if that's not bad enough, they stopped on the way down and made faces at me!!! (Actually we were still on our way up, and I had passed them for a change...lol!!!)
Near the top of this trail are some areas of columnar basalt that were left behind form a previous eruption on Mt. Rainier. Bet you didn't know I was a geologist too, did you??? Okay, okay...I'm not, and I only know what this is because of the little sign below it, which tells those of us who are not to out of breath to see straight, what it is.
Do you see how blue our skies were??? We had about one week of that, and now it is 38 degrees and raining again. Blechhhhh!!!!At the base of our mini mountain, was the resident elk herd. However (and I think this may have been due to the recent earthquake that we had) all of the resident elk herds had joined together into one big herd. It was an amazing sight, with more than 70 elk all congregated together. What was even cooler, was that we could see them from atop our mini mountain, so we knew exactly were to look for them once we climbed back down.
Well...I hope that your weather is behaving better than ours is, and that you are all having a great Friday! Talk/blog at ya' soon!

6 comments:

Gail said...

I would love to hike with you.

allhorsestuff said...

I am hooting at the "Shitlins"!!!
Oh what lovely places and sights you have!! I am oouing and aweing!
KK

Grey Horse Matters said...

Little kidlets are such show-offs, aren't they. My granddaughter always says things like, "come on Gramma, you can do it". Ha, I know I can it just takes longer than it used to.

Great pictures, hope you get some sunny weather soon.

Krystina said...

Awsome pictures! the kidlets look like they had a ton of fun! Our weather turned dismal last night. I lucked out and had fairly warm and sunny dry weather this weekend while working at the barn. Hopefully I luck out next weekend too!

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

I posted a long comment and then boom! I was bumped off your site and blogger. bah!

What I was trying to say is that I miss hiking so much. Your trails are so interesting and fun looking. I am digging that columnar basalt. It reminds me of a rock wall. Cool!

I love that have nickames for your kids, too. Around here I mostly call them kidlets or twinlings. And then they also have all sorts of silly personal nicknames, too.

Oh! And wow! So many elk. How do your horses do around the elk? And how close were you and the kids able to get without the elk running away...or putting yourself in danger? gah!

~Lisa

Melanie said...

Lisa-
Our horses are fine with the elk, because they have lived with them around for so long. Sometimes the elk will even walk with us as we ride! That gets a little nerve wracking!!

The kidlets and I stay back and there is usually a fence between us and the elk. They will let you get within 60 feet or so of them, but I don't do that unless there is a fence. Those momma elk can be mean...lol!!!