Welcome to Conlin Chaos

Welcome to the family journal that captures the chaos that is the world of Colleen, Adam, Zach, Ben, Josh, Luke, Tommy, and Ruby. Here you will see small snippets of what we see every day.

Come. Enjoy! You know we do!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Coyote Gulch Hike and Other Weekend Fun

Friday night Adam and the kids made the long journey across the street to a neighborhood s'mores roast held in our neighbors' basketball court. They had a great time playing with their friends, eating s'mores and getting nice and spazzed up just before bed. Adam loved that!

My little junk food junkie, Josh, was in sweets heaven!

Luke liked the mallows and grahams, but mostly liked rolling in the grass, making everyone laugh. As you can see, they were having way too much fun to miss me!
I was at a little "Happy Trails" party (we couldn't call it a 'goodbye party,' that sounded too sad!) for two of my great friends here, Jacquie, next to me with the baby, and Kendra, in the pink shirt on the floor. Both of them are Air Force wives, and both of their husbands have been given new assignments in new locations. It makes me so sad! These two are such incredible moms, wives, women and friends, and I am so blessed to have known them for this too-short year! Kendra and Jacquie, you will be missed incredibly! At least our last girls' night was a good one!
Here's a picture of many of our kids together from earlier in the week. What a great group of kiddos! The boys are sure going to miss their buddies, but not nearly as much as I am going to miss mine.
Saturday morning, Adam woke the boys up early and took them to the church to help clean. Luke and I slept in and then rewarded our hard little workers with blueberry muffins when they got back home. Adam's report: they were really enthusiastic cleaners! Now if only I could get them to be more so at home!
We decided to take a late afternoon hike down at Bear Creek Regional Park and did the Coyote Gulch and Songbird Trail Loop. It was beautiful, as always. Ben was really excited to go because his kindergarten class had just visited the park before school let out. He was our designated "guide" for the hike, and was very proud to hold that title. He led us well!
Yes! A big, hearty grin for the camera from Luke!
Zach wanted to give the camera a try:
One of our views...ahhhhhhhh.
Josh walked out of the house in too-small shoes with no socks, while Zach and Ben grabbed their Crocs (with socks on, yes!). I didn't realize we needed to monitor our children's hiking footwear more closely! Part-way along the trail we had to do the sock swap or Josh would have ended up with massive blister damage. Ben's socks fit Josh well, but were too thick for the too-small shoes; Zach's did the trick, even if the sock's heel was up on Josh's ankle. Thank goodness he has nice brothers who are willing to share without a grumble!
The mid-laugh looks on our faces can be explained. While we were posing for this picture, Luke was in the backpack behind Adam...
...doing this. What a clown!
Down the trail! I take a lot of these kind of pictures...I don't know why.
On the way back to the car we passed this stream, so of course we had to take a pause.
We ended up dashing through a little afternoon drizzle back to the car, but we were only slightly damp by the time we arrived, and very happy. And at least there was no lightning...that is until the big, loud, pouring-rain storm hit during dinner tonight! Glad we weren't out in that!

Weekends are so nice!

5 comments:

Shaina said...

Sounded like a great day!! We'll have to all exchange info on all the little hikes we go on. They all look so great.

Rachel Elaine said...

You guys are ALWAYS doing something so fun and exciting even with little kids. We need to take lessons. What a neat family!

runningfan said...

I love down-the-tail pictures!

Candace said...

What a fun weekend! And I know why about those down-the-trail pictures. Check out my hiking ones in Palm Springs...and there's more where those came from. You come by it naturally, plus it's much easier to take them from behind, then to keep trying to stop them in front.

Your Girl Leah said...

I just love the stories of your hikes, it makes me feel like I am there *sort of, but not quite as cool as being there*

I miss.