This Morning

Meet Avery.
She’s a morning person. 

She wakes up annoyingly happy, every morning, day after day.  You can actually hear the birds chirping around her as she goes about her way, humming a happy little tune.  She’s like a walking Disney movie.  It’s off-putting.  If I didn’t already love her so much, I probably wouldn't like her.

Meet Ashy.
She is not a morning person.

She wakes up generally angry, every morning, day after day. It offends her, on a personal level, if you wake her up before she’s ready (which is never) … and yet at the same time, it also offends her if you let her sleep too long and she’s the last person up.  Either way, what you did was wrong ... and you should know better.  I can't wait for her teenage years!

Solution:

I send my Morning Person in to wake up my Non-Morning Person ... that way I no longer have to feel the wrath of a 4 year-old scorned.

Plus, it’s really hard for Ashy to spit fire at someone like Avery, who's so obviously high on life at 7:30am.

Meet Anistyn.

She's neither a Morning Person or a Non-Morning Person ... however, she is highly unpredictable until she's had her morning coffee Capri Sun.

And last but not least ...

Meet the spider I found on our bedroom ceiling this morning.

Does anyone else feel the need to take pictures of the spiders you find in your home before actually killing them ... to document them, so to speak ... you know, so you can get online and look up pictures of deadly spiders and compare and contrast and … no, I know … me neither.  Who does that? Talk about nerdy.

"Strenuous"

For whatever reason (I'd like to think it's because I'm stupid), I keep letting Jared talk me into these hikes that seem like a really fun idea at the time, and then half way through I feel like this ...

I don't mean to complain, it's just that ... my legs are 35 years old now, and they felt every bit of that 5 mile hike today ... and they hated it ... they really hated it.

I also know for a fact that a couple of other legs I know, younger legs, hated it too.

Jared would never admit that it was probably a bad idea to drag our kids (and me) up 2000 feet in Red Rock Canyon's only hike that is labeled "strenuous" ... rather than "moderate" or "easy", which are the hikes we usually drag our kids up.  It's actually very simple though, allow me to explain ....

Strenuous = $#*&?@!

We did see some Bighorn Sheep though, I wouldn't dream of leaving that part out ... and it certainly helps that Jared brings it up every 20 minuntes ... "How cool were those bighorn sheep Lor?" ... "Can you believe how close we were to those bighorn sheep?" ... "You have to admit how awesome those bighorn sheep were."  No.  I don't.  I don't have to admit anything ... I'm sorry, if you've seen one bighorn sheep, you've seen ... $#*&?@! ... Did I mention my legs are 35 now!?

We did make it to the top though, only a mere 3 hours after we started ...

It was a little weird up there ... I can't quite put my finger on it, there were just things at the top that I wasn't expecting ... 

Highlights ... getting to wave the victory flag ...

... and signing the guestbook, reserved for the idiots people who actually climbed to the top and felt the need to put it in writing ...

Idiots People like us ...

More flag waving ...

More city gazing ...

How pretty does The Strip look when you get really, really, really, really, really far away from it?

Then we packed it up and moved it on out ...

You know you're on a good hike when 10 minutes back down the trail, your kids ask if they can stop for a minute so they can say a quick prayer that we all make it back to the car without dying.  "Sure kids! We can pray for that!  Who wants to lead?"

My legs are still mad at Jared ... and my favorite quote of the day came from Ashy: "When I get big and have kids I will NEVER EVER take them hiking!!!"  So sweet, right?  You can just tell she means it too.

Turtlehead Peak ... check!

Heavy Boots

I foolishly keep thinking that one of these days, I'll be grown up enough that maybe I won't miss them quite so bad when they leave.  Again ... foolishly I think this. 

They've only been gone for two hours ... and I miss them terribly.

And such is life.