Eklutna Lake

Joey and I went on our very last hike with our parent hiking group, Taiga Trekkers.  It was a great hike, but kind of sad.  This group has given me so much courage and wisdom on being outside, regardless of the weather, with my young child.  Just because you have a baby does not mean you have to stop hiking, biking, skiing, camping, whatever!  You just have to make some adjustments!

You may not go as fast as you would have, pre-baby, but you're still out there.  It's not so much about the destination, as it is about the journey.  We checked out Eklutna Lake for this last hike.  Michael and I have been to this lake several times while living in Alaska.  It is such a beautiful place.

Joey has made a lot of friends up here, too.  He has had play dates, gone hiking, played in the water, rough housed, and more with lots of other Alaskan kiddos.  We're definitely gonna miss seeing our little buddies. 

We are all so lucky and grateful that we have had a chance to live in Alaska and see and do so many things!  

We're trying not to be too sad about leaving right now because we know that we will probably come back.  We already know that Joey will probably move back here when he's 18 years old.  He is totally going to eat up the fact that he was born in Alaska!   I only lived in Ohio for the first six years of my life, and all I talked about growing up was moving back to Ohio as soon as I could!  (I never did, but Ohio is not as cool as Alaska)!  We'll see what happens in the future for our little crew.  ;) 

Reflection Lake

This past Friday, Joey and I joined our friends, Debbie and Sophie, for a little hike near our house.  This was a super flat and mellow hike only about 5 minutes from our house!   Why didn't we check this out earlier!?

It was a really nice hike on a perfect day!   We're gonna miss these days. 

Willawaw, Take Two

My friend, Alison, sent me the photos she took from our day hike out towards Willawaw Lakes a week or so ago.  I know I already posted about this hike, but she got some good shots that I couldn't resist posting on here! 

Joey and his bud E being contained in our make-shift playpen, aka. the bed of Alison's truck, while we got all of our stuff together!   

Part of my crew heading down the trail!

 Little J trying to figure out how to use Mommy's camera!

The boys playing!  They were having so much fun laughing and smiling at each other!  :) 

Joey was smart, and read his trail literature!  He was reading up on  us sharing the trail with the moose!  :)  

Willawaw, Take Two

My friend, Alison, sent me the photos she took from our day hike out towards Willawaw Lakes a week or so ago.  I know I already posted about this hike, but she got some good shots that I couldn't resist posting on here! 

Joey and his bud E being contained in our make-shift playpen, aka. the bed of Alison's truck, while we got all of our stuff together!   

Part of my crew heading down the trail!

 Little J trying to figure out how to use Mommy's camera!

The boys playing!  They were having so much fun laughing and smiling at each other!  :) 

Joey was smart, and read his trail literature!  He was reading up on  us sharing the trail with the moose!  :)  

Willawaw, Take Two

My friend, Alison, sent me the photos she took from our day hike out towards Willawaw Lakes a week or so ago.  I know I already posted about this hike, but she got some good shots that I couldn't resist posting on here! 

Joey and his bud E being contained in our make-shift playpen, aka. the bed of Alison's truck, while we got all of our stuff together!   

Part of my crew heading down the trail!

 Little J trying to figure out how to use Mommy's camera!

The boys playing!  They were having so much fun laughing and smiling at each other!  :) 

Joey was smart, and read his trail literature!  He was reading up on  us sharing the trail with the moose!  :)  

Willawaw

Joey and I joined one of our mama friends and her little man for a super long day hike.  We decided to head out towards Willawaw Lakes.  This is a pretty long hike (for peeps with babies), but we figured that we would go as far as we could and then turn around. 

Before we even started our hike, this was going on in the trailhead parking lot!  Cra-zy!  The fire department showed up and put the fire out before the car completely burnt up!  After that excitement died down, we started our hike about 1015 A.M. 

 We didn't get back to the car until about 445 PM!  Definitely a long, exhausting, and awesome day! 



We did take a few breaks to give our backs and shoulders a bit of a break and let the boys run around some!   

 Both boys did INCREDIBLE!   We were out all day and they were in the packs for most of that time.

    

We didn't see any wildlife during out hike, which was good and bad.  It would have been nice to see some animals, but I'm glad that we didn't have any scary encounters either!   

 The weather was absolutely beautiful and we had a really great time! 

We did not make it all of the way to the lakes...a little too far for two mamas (and one us is 23 weeks pregnant!  NOT ME) carrying 23+ pound babies!  We're not exactly sure how far we hiked, but we're thinking it was about 6 or so miles! 

Since we ended up turning around before we made it to the lakes, we both wished that we would have turned around a little earlier than we did.  The boys were kind of fussy the last hour.  So we let them walk the last 1/2 mile back to the cars.   They had fun with that!  

We were super tired towards the end of this hike.  As Alison put it, we were just putting one foot in front of the other!   It was truly a great day and hike!  It is days like these that make me not want to leave Alaska. 

Willawaw

Joey and I joined one of our mama friends and her little man for a super long day hike.  We decided to head out towards Willawaw Lakes.  This is a pretty long hike (for peeps with babies), but we figured that we would go as far as we could and then turn around. 

Before we even started our hike, this was going on in the trailhead parking lot!  Cra-zy!  The fire department showed up and put the fire out before the car completely burnt up!  After that excitement died down, we started our hike about 1015 A.M. 

 We didn't get back to the car until about 445 PM!  Definitely a long, exhausting, and awesome day! 



We did take a few breaks to give our backs and shoulders a bit of a break and let the boys run around some!   

 Both boys did INCREDIBLE!   We were out all day and they were in the packs for most of that time.

    

We didn't see any wildlife during out hike, which was good and bad.  It would have been nice to see some animals, but I'm glad that we didn't have any scary encounters either!   

 The weather was absolutely beautiful and we had a really great time! 

We did not make it all of the way to the lakes...a little too far for two mamas (and one us is 23 weeks pregnant!  NOT ME) carrying 23+ pound babies!  We're not exactly sure how far we hiked, but we're thinking it was about 6 or so miles! 

Since we ended up turning around before we made it to the lakes, we both wished that we would have turned around a little earlier than we did.  The boys were kind of fussy the last hour.  So we let them walk the last 1/2 mile back to the cars.   They had fun with that!  

We were super tired towards the end of this hike.  As Alison put it, we were just putting one foot in front of the other!   It was truly a great day and hike!  It is days like these that make me not want to leave Alaska. 

Willawaw

Joey and I joined one of our mama friends and her little man for a super long day hike.  We decided to head out towards Willawaw Lakes.  This is a pretty long hike (for peeps with babies), but we figured that we would go as far as we could and then turn around. 

Before we even started our hike, this was going on in the trailhead parking lot!  Cra-zy!  The fire department showed up and put the fire out before the car completely burnt up!  After that excitement died down, we started our hike about 1015 A.M. 

 We didn't get back to the car until about 445 PM!  Definitely a long, exhausting, and awesome day! 



We did take a few breaks to give our backs and shoulders a bit of a break and let the boys run around some!   

 Both boys did INCREDIBLE!   We were out all day and they were in the packs for most of that time.

    

We didn't see any wildlife during out hike, which was good and bad.  It would have been nice to see some animals, but I'm glad that we didn't have any scary encounters either!   

 The weather was absolutely beautiful and we had a really great time! 

We did not make it all of the way to the lakes...a little too far for two mamas (and one us is 23 weeks pregnant!  NOT ME) carrying 23+ pound babies!  We're not exactly sure how far we hiked, but we're thinking it was about 6 or so miles! 

Since we ended up turning around before we made it to the lakes, we both wished that we would have turned around a little earlier than we did.  The boys were kind of fussy the last hour.  So we let them walk the last 1/2 mile back to the cars.   They had fun with that!  

We were super tired towards the end of this hike.  As Alison put it, we were just putting one foot in front of the other!   It was truly a great day and hike!  It is days like these that make me not want to leave Alaska.