Hike: A verb. A noun. A way of life

I discovered my passion for hiking when I tagged along on Keith's business trip to the Napa Valley 4 years ago. I know, you're probably thinking right now- how does one discover a passion for hiking when one is in California Wine Country? Well I had dabbled in it here and there since I arrived in New Paltz in 1995 as a college freshman. And when we were planning the trip, I knew I wasn't going to want to go wine tasting alone, so I decided to plan some adventures that I knew I could do by myself. One of them was hiking in the Napa Valley State Park. It was an empowering experience. I got lost, but found my way back all on my own. When we returned to New York we began hiking on a regular basis. Eventually we became members of the Mohonk Preserve and only took a hiatus from hiking when I was on bed rest with Cole. (During the final week of my pregnancy though, I was in so much pain that we went for a hike at Lake Minnewaska in hopes of getting the labor moving- it worked!). Since having Cole we've continued to hike the beautiful mountain range in which we live. That's why having the right baby carrier has always been so important to me. I'm always thinking - how's my back going to feel if we go hiking in this?

And since we no longer belong to a gym, we hike to exercise and as a way to connect with nature. It really has become a way of life for us. When we blessed Cole, we promised him that we'd foster within him a love of nature. As far as I can tell, we're off to a great start.

Every so often I go back into the blog book I created from this here blog and have a "this time last year" moment. I don't know how, but I found the time to post nearly every day during Cole's first year of life. I checked recently and discovered that at this time last year Cole was just learning to sit up while also trying to crawl. I remember that he started sitting up on his own for a total of 2 days and then it was on to bigger and better things: getting moving. He's always been an active person. Lately it's climbing that he wants to do all the time. All he wants to do is explore unchartered territory- the table, the bookshelves, etc. So with that in mind we take him out to parks every weekend where he can climb and run free. These past two weekends we decided he needed real rocks to climb on and a real forest to run in. So we took him to Mohonk. As expected, all parties involved had a blast.

Here's the proof:

Happy little man 

Oh boy, I get to play with sticks, rocks, and run at the same time?! Neat!

At Trapps with all the other cool climbers

"Tunna!"

Dada and Cole walk back down the trail

Climbing up the Millbrook Ridge Trail with Dada

Climbing on his own 

Dada and Cole

Taking a break for some Doo Doo

At the top of the trail wearing Cole in the new Boba 3G 

New Paltz and beyond

Back down the trail

Out of the carrier - time to run!

Precious cuteness

Mama has to do some babywearing so we can move before it gets dark!