I hope you all had an amazing Father's Day!



For Clark's first Father's Day, we got him a him a Deuter baby backpack for hiking and stuff. He did get the present a little early, but we made sure to go out and use it yesterday.

Note: When a hiking trail says it's closed, it's closed for a reason. While I tried to explain this to my husband in the moment, he said they probably just did it because they didn't want all the tourists going through something they can't handle.

As I thought to myself, Or a part that no one can handle.

Clark decided it'd be a good idea to go through it anyway.

This is part of what we faced.







As you can see, they were redoing bridges that weren't there or weren't up to standard. We ended up going through knee-deep muddy water, a sort of bog, if you will, to get to the end.

I was not a happy camper. There would have been more pictures if I had looked at it as a "glass half full" type of adventure. But I definitely didn't, and still don't... really.

Luckily, Michael didn't seem to pick up on Mama's stress...since he slept through the crazy part soundly in his backpack on Dada's shoulders.

Needless to say, I used the "trump card" all day of, "It wouldn't have happened if you had listened to me in the first place and we would have stayed to the open part of the trail."

Clark's reasoning was that we would be out longer having to turn around on the trail and Michael would get fussy. Well, because we had to face parts that were not maintained at all with the baby and the puppy, we were out just as long as we would have been if we just turned around.

He certainly got the Father's Day adventure he wanted.

Although it was incredibly stressful on my part, and I flipped out because I was so afraid something was going to happen, it was, overall, a good time.


(Not a very good pic of me, but that's ok.)

Note: We definitely will not ever be doing something as irresponsible or ridiculous like that again. I made sure to ask Clark what he would do if Michael snuck into some closed off section of the woods when he was older and something happened to him. Clark didn't seem to like that so much.

Note: I've also learned I need to stick to my guns more and not give in just to make Clark happy... especially when it's a safety thing.

Well, clearly we got out alive. Just a few scrapes from bushes and wet shoes from ponds and such... but we made it!

Did I mention I started his Father's Day off with these?



Recipe to be posted by the end of the week!