Morning Hike

After we left the cabin, we didn't want to say goodbye, so we decided to take a short hike together. Ben found a nearby loop we could do with all the kids. I think it was about 3 miles. There was a lot of cousin togetherness, and everyone was all smiles. 

They didn't want to say goodbye to Grandpa! But my parents needed to get on the road for home. 

Sorry to see Grandma leave too :(

We left Chris in the parking lot with her painful, sunburned feet, and started out. It was hard keeping up with Kiersten, Kyrie, Linkin, and Cash, but they were the rascals I tried to stay up with. 

Addy was so sweet keeping track of the little girls. They adore her. 

I thought this picture was fun. I guess all these kids were up ahead of me at this point. 

Near the top.

Fortunately there were lots of tempting logs and tree trunks off to the side that they all wanted to climb around on. It actually slowed them down somewhat so we olds could keep up. 

It was pretty nice at the top. I miss the Rocky Mountains. 

I made the teenagers/young adults (I guess!) get a photo. I love these kids beyond words. They still seem like wee babies to me. Hopefully they don't remember all of teenager Becky's babysitting mishaps back in the day. 

Evie has always loved her cousin Jayden best. At one point she was calling him her "manservant". He's very kind about it. At least she doesn't want to marry him anymore. 

My love. He's a good guy. I know how much he loves hiking. 

We let the kids play on this tree for a while. No one wanted to go back down the trail yet. 

Some of the kids were super high. We made them get down, because we are fun spoilers. 

They'd have stayed up there all day if we'd let them. 

Eventually it was time to start back down. 

The kids scratched their names on the rocks with smaller rocks. 

Shelly, Chris, and Angie's families all headed down to Utah for a few more days together, but the rest of us ultimately had to say our sad farewells. We had some tears. 

 But hopefully we can all be together again soon. 

On our way back up to IF, Evie wanted to stop at the Paris sign. She was so excited about it. She got a snowglobe and magnet too.