Talk about your number 1 all time backfire

       Jon turned 28 on Monday (the 14th), and we wanted to do something special and budget friendly as a family. We were feeling kind of adventurous and wanted to take advantage of the warm sunny weather that Northern California had been having (we heard rumors of temps in the upper 60's-70's!). We were toying with the idea of driving down the hill about an hour and fifteen minutes to take a hike in the Nevada City area. On Thursday I got home from work to find that we received an amazing gift in the mail...a baby carrier hiking backpack. It had been something we had been planning to buy before the summer arrived and I had actually toyed with getting Jon one for his birthday. Apparently Jon's relatives read minds, because one arrived at our doorstep! Yes, we were very excited. Receiving the pack was all we needed to move forward with our hiking plans.
       So we popped out of bed on Saturday, packed up the boys and headed towards Nevada City. Things started to go array for us after about an hour of driving, when Nolan realized that he had NO interest in being in a carseat. There was crying. Pulling over. Frustrated parents. And exhaustion. 
       Finally we reached the trailhead, and couldn't wait to get the kid unstrapped from his seat.  After spending another 15 minutes trying to figure out where to park because there were "No Parking" signs everywhere.  We discovered 20 minutes into our hike that there was an actual parking lot right up from us. Figures. The only thing that was keeping me sane, was the sight of green. Yes, green! In February. I love green in February! It's almost enough to make a girl want to move out of the mountains.

Unfortunately, Nolan wasn't overly interested in being 

strapped into a backpack. He wanted to be held by 

his mama. So that's what we did.

Walked and held.

We found a seat by the river to see if he might calm down a bit.

It worked for a few moments.

Blue was 100% happy to camp out near the river.

Then we headed to the trail. 

We were greated by this old covered bridge. 

Ooh-la-la.

We were kind of nervous on the walk.

One minute it seemed like Nolan might cry and

one minute he was fine.

It warmed up to about 71 degrees. 

71. 

In February.

Unfortunately, it was so sunny that we needed to 

keep a hat on his head to avoid

getting burnt.

The views were nice.

And the trail would have been wonderful,

had our baby appreciated it as much as us.

That was the last somewhat-happy photo taken.

After a few more minutes of walking,

the tears came out and we had to turn ourselves around.

This is what the rest of our hike looked like. 

A brisk walk, mama holding baby, dad close behind holding our two backpacks.

Jon had also forgotten Blue's leash,

and the rope that we had him tied with kept coming undone.

Yes we were that family.

When we got back into the car, Mr. Tears fell right to sleep. 

Thank goodness!

But, mid-drive he did treat us to another 30 minutes of crying.

When we walked into the house we poured

 ourselves a couple of vodka tonics.

All better.

I'd say Jon's 28th birthday wasn't exactly what we had hoped for. 

But we tried. 

And by goodness, our kid will love hiking by this summer.

The next day we wanted to try swimming with Nolan.

We don't have a public pool in our town, 

but 30 minutes down the road there is an indoor option.

We didn't bring a camera with us, 

but captured a few shots on Jon's phone.

This is kinda how it went.

Nolan seemed quite suspicious of the pool. 

Here he is, watching swimmers while we got ready.

We should have known from the look on his face, 

that his first attempt at swimming might be a doosy.

The rest of the adventure went like this. 

Baby clinging for dear life to mom and dad. 

Let's just say that we struck out for the second time in one weekend.

We blamed it on the water being too cold for the little guy. 

Guess we'll try again in a couple more months!