Hiking to Laurel Falls

Look who's 13 months! Christopher is a busy busy boy, constantly on the move. Last weekend, he took five steps by himself as he walked from Mommy to Daddy in pursuit of Cheerios. He'll stand by himself, and sometimes take a few steps by himself if I slyly let go of his hands, but as soon as he realizes what he's doing, he quickly sits down. I don't think he's quite made the connection that standing and walking alone is going to get him places when Daddy and Mommy are tired of walking with him in circles around the house. Christopher is never still for more than about 0.5 seconds. Everything is a toy, and the faster he can move between each new thing he sees, the happier he is.

He enjoys feeding himself, whenever Mommy is willing to sacrifice the next half hour after he's done for a bath. He's getting better at actually getting some of the food into his mouth, though you would never be able to tell that from the following pictures.

"Mmm, mmm, delicious!"
















"Two spoons are way better than one!"
















Last Saturday, Andy, Christopher and I decided to spend the afternoon hiking. We drove about 20 minutes away and hiked to a place called Laurel Falls. It was a gorgeous day - the weather was perfect and the colors on the trees were amazing.




































We stopped often along the way to just look around and enjoy the beauty, and Andy took lots of pictures.






















Christopher enjoyed playing on the wooden bridge we found that crossed the creek.
"I'm a big boy!"
















Looking over the rail with Mommy.
















Family picture: Andy, Christopher and Rachel.
















While Andy played with the camera and took lots of pictures, Christopher and I crossed the bridge and went down to play with the rocks by the creek. First, Christopher chose his rocks.






















Then Mommy taught him how to throw them in the water and make a splash. At first he just wanted to eat them, but after Mommy threw two or three of them in the water, he caught on and had fun doing it himself.
















Beautiful creek!
















We followed the trail along the creek and up one side of the mountain. As we reached the crest and then hiked along the ridge, we were once again reminded of how much we love the mountains. The colors God created in all the trees were spectacular. The photo doesn't even begin to do them justice.
















We finally reached Laurel Falls, another beautiful site for the day.















Christopher was quite mezmorized by the waterfalls. It was actually hard to get him to look at the camera - which is usually never a problem! =)
















Since we took so long getting to the falls, we needed to pick up the pace to get out of the woods before dark. Andy wanted to take a few more pictures, and since I hiked up the steeper parts a little slower than he did, I started up the trail and was going to wait for him at the top where it flattened out. Well, I got so focused on making it to the top, that I missed where our trail split off. So I reached the top of the mountain, and realized I was on the wrong path. I decided to wait a few minutes and see if Andy ended up coming up this way too, since I hadn't seen another trail. Every few minutes I yelled out Andy's name, hoping he was headed our way. Long story short, he had run ahead on the RIGHT trail, trying to catch up with us. After awhile, he realized there was no way we could be that far ahead, so he ran back and started yelling for us as he went. We finally heard each other and he raced up the side of the hill to where Christopher and I were waiting to be found! Fortunately, we still made it out before dark, nobody got hurt, and nothing bad that could have happened did. So we both knew better than to split up in the woods - it seemed so harmless. Lesson learned. Anyway, we had a wonderful time together and you must come visit us and see the falls.