Thursday, March 15, 2012

My Birthday

With snow only the week before, there was no telling how my birthday would turn out, but it worked out beautifully! My birthday fell on a Friday. Travis doesn't work Fridays and it happened to be a day that Avery had off of school. So as soon as Carson was done at preschool, we picked him up, grabbed some drive-thru for lunch and headed out for a hike! We couldn't believe how amazing the weather was that day and even better, it hadn't rained in the couple days previous so it wasn't muddy.

We went for the first time to Shellburg Falls for the first time. The first part of the walk takes you down a gravel road surrounded by private land and cow pasture.
Emmett, Avery

Once we got into the trees the boys enjoyed noting lots of different parts of nature. Here Avery checks out some different lichens.
Avery

Carson found this bit of long moss and immediately said, "look, I'm Uncle Kevin!" and he wouldn't let go of his "goatee" the rest of the hike.
Carson

The pictures don't do it justice, but this was a crazy stump hanging way out. If the tree had still been there I think I would have felt it was too precarious for safety!
stump

Finally we got to Lower Shellburg Falls, a 40 foot, two tiered waterfall. This is the view from the top.
Lower Shellburg Falls top

It's hard to see the entire Lower Shellburg Falls without scrambling down the steep bluff, but later when we came back from Shellburg Falls further up the trail, Travis did just that and got some pictures for me.
Emmett, Avery, Carson

Then we headed up the trail off the gravel road to Shellburg Falls.
Avery, Emmett, Carson, Travis

First sighting.
Shellburg Falls

Not the best stopping spot (ahem, a little further down to get those trees out of the way please) but the boys were just about to run, so this will work.
Travis, Avery, Carson, Emmett

Shellburg Falls

Avery, Emmett, Travis, Carson

Avery, Travis, Carson, Emmett

Emmett, Avery, Travis, Carson

Shellburg Falls is a 100 foot waterfall.
Shellburg Falls

Emmett

Such a cool canopy of mossy limbs.
Emmett

The path goes around the back of the waterfall under the basalt overhang.
Avery

Travis

Avery, Carson

Around the other side of the waterfall and further up the trail.
Shellburg Falls

Down the trail further is the set of stairs and as the trail wraps you back up and around to get you to the top of the waterfall, we climbed just enough altitude to find patches of snow left.
Travis, Avery, Emmett

Travis, Avery, Carson

Shellburg Creek upstream of the falls.
Shellburg Creek

Emmett, Avery

Emmett, Avery, Carson

After we took the trail past the waterfall far enough to hit where the gravel road we had previously walked on swung back around to meet the trail, we headed back.

The path under the waterfall was really muddy and slippery. A little nerve wracking for me with my little men.
Carson, Avery, Travis, Emmett

This sign post isn't naming the falls, the arrow at the bottom shows this is the trail junction to the lower part of the falls down through that mossy canopy.
Travis, Laurie

I love all the fuzzy moss covering everything.
moss

A silly Carson. Look he's still holding the "goatee" in his hand.
Carson

A pause on the bench back down by the Lower falls.
Travis, Emmett, Avery, Carson

Crazy kid.
Carson

The Lower falls again.
Lower Shellburg Falls

And that's when Travis made a dash down the bluff with my camera since he wouldn't let me go. I set up the camera for him and off he went.
Travis

Lower Shellburg Falls
Lower Shellburg Falls

I had the boys hunt the hillside while we waited for Travis.
Carson, Avery

By this time we had gorgeous evening light.
path

The boys all found sticks and decided they were hunters (elk hunter in Emmett's case since he has a bit of an obsession with that). I love the intensity on Emmett's face.
Emmett, Carson, Avery

Such serious business.
Avery, Carson, Emmett

How is this limb still holding on?
tree limb

Now they're hammerhead sharks.
Emmett, Carson, Avery

Back out on the cow pastures
tree

cow pasture

cows

The hike round-trip is 2.8miles although we went further so we maybe maxed out at 3.5 miles and the boys did outstanding. Look, they still have enough energy to run.
Travis, Carson, Emmett, Avery

A beautiful, back-lit copse of trees.
trees

Same copse, different angle
trees

trees

The end of the path is in sight. What a great hike and what amazing luck in the weather we had!!!
path

After our hike we went to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, La Hacienda Real. On the way home Travis wanted to stop and pick up a cake since there had been zero time for him to make me one. I waited in the car while all my boys went in to pick one out for me.

When we got home Avery presented me (and Travis) with these talent show tickets. The boys had been working extremely hard, without being asked, to clean up the playroom the day before. Turns out they had a surprise in mind for me for my gift. Their first ever talent show (dancing was the talent). I know homes with girls often see talent shows rather frequently, but this was completely new for us. How cool that Avery even knew and incorporated the Comedy Tragedy masks in our tickets. (Avery's teeth don't lend themselves well to making an "sh" sound, so when he's sounding out words I see that a lot in his writing, hence show becomes sowe.)
tickets

They cleared the area and lined it the stage with all the old throw pillows that we've kept for them in the playroom. They had even hauled chairs upstairs for us.
Travis, Carson, Avery, Emmett

Let the show begin!
Emmett, Carson, Avery

Carson, Avery, Emmett

Avery, Carson, Emmett

Avery, Emmett

Carson, Avery, Emmett

At this point I started a video. It's 6 minutes, but it's (at least for grandmas) well worth the watch. The video starts with Carson turning the dial on the "radio"...

click "Vimeo" in the lower right corner to see it larger.


After their bows at the end of the video, they jumped off the chair a couple more times for the camera.
Carson, Avery, Emmett

Carson, Emmett

And then it was finally time for cake! What a great birthday! This really was one of my favorites with the great weather letting us have such a great hike and fun family time!
cake

1 comment:

Mom said...

My favorite pics are the evening light ones on the way home. Of course, as one of the grandmas, the video was a hoot and grandpa could hear me giggling from another room. Great imaginations and planning on the boys' part. Love the radio and the Star Wars song.