7 Yrs 3 Mo & Backpacking

CET are 7 years and 3 months old!

I told them to hug each other, ha!

In September we took the boys on their very first backpacking trip! Phil and I used to backpack before the kids were born. We would fill up our packs and hike 5-6 miles in to some beautiful lakes. We'd fish and catch dinner, although we always brought plenty to eat. In some ways I actually liked backpacking better over car camping because there is so little to pack and after you get home their is very little to clean up. We finally thought the boys could handle a small backpacking trip. We recruited extra adult helpers just in case. The boys carried all their clothes, walkie talkies, water and snacks, so their packs weighed less than 5 lbs ea. Phil and I each had our packs as heavy as was comfortable. In addition Phil packed a third pack with what we couldn't fit in ours The idea was that someone would go back for it once we all got there. The long and arduous hike was all of 1.2 miles in, hahaha! We were quite skeptical of the boys so we didn't want to get into something we couldn't finish. But the boys did great and blazed down the trail and when we arrived they said "was that all?" We had explained many times that no matter what they HAD to carry their own packs so they must have thought it was going to be much harder than it ended up being. Since they did so well going in we filled their packs twice as heavy and we only had to do one trip out. Now that we know what we're capable of,  next year, as the boys like to say, "we'll take it up to the next level!"

Our crew was so fun!

This huge rubble of giant rocks kept the boys busy almost the entire time.
They loved climbing these and making little rock forts out of the smaller rocks. 

There was a beautiful and very shallow lake here. If it had been warmer it would have been so fun to swim in it. Phil hooked a pretty large fish in the first few minutes of fishing but didn't land it, then nothing after that. Not even one bite! So no fresh fish for dinner but our dehydrated foods were pretty tasty, ha!

Caleb on the hike out.
Such a pretty place!

Not from our backpacking trip but I never posted when Eli's dream came true.
He's always wanted to go on a boat ride. It was so cute how excited he was!

My ROCKIN' BOYZ!

At Phil's company picnic they had kayaks to borrow so Eli got to fulfill his dream twice within a couple weeks of each other (this is Caleb in the picture though).