Hiking and Scrambling

Check out Scott lacing those babies up. He got brand new hiking boots - courtesy of the in-laws as a graduation gift - so we tried them out on Independence Day.

After wearing them around the house for a few days, we tried them out on a really cool trail that involves a lot of scrambling up and down boulders. Bruce loves climbing; as for me, my center of gravity is continually shifting so I am just getting slower. Bruce definitely deserves hiking boots, but his feet are growing so fast that it's not worth buying a decent pair. Sorry Bruce - maybe when you get your PhD...The trail climbs up and over a bunch of big rocks, through a stream......under some trees...
...and through a patch of blueberries.


(yum!)Bruce loves following the little marks that make the trail (see the little white "L" on the rock?) and gets giddy and runs to the next one when he sees it. Bruce found this cool little caterpillar on the trail and said it was his friend. He carried it for awhile and only put it down after we insisted it needed to eat a leaf.

After our solitary hike, we spent a few hours at the community beach and then headed to the fireworks downtown. We got an awesome parking spot (after asking some guy to move his Harley a few inches forward) and hung out with friends from church for a few hours. We brought a DVD player so Bruce and his buddies watched a movie on a picnic blanket while we waited for the show to begin. We didn't get a great view of the fireworks - we were sitting behind a row of trees - but Bruce was still thrilled with what he did see. As soon as the last firework popped, we ran (and I mean ran) to our car and got out of the city before the big traffic jams ensued (good work Scott).