A-hiking we will go - and a hummingbird

We went hiking! As a family. My compromise with Matt, as I'm not ready to go canoeing with S&J. I can hear them fussing now about the heat, the sun, the itchy life vest. Although Matt says the Shenandoah is about 2 feet deep and you can walk across it, I'm just not ready to go there yet. So hiking we went!

We live not far from the Appalachian trail so Sunday morning we drove up to the trail head and set off for Bear's Den, a 20 or 30 minute walk up to a rocky lookout spot. Now look- here's Jason walking with Dad:

And look again! Guess who gets to carry Jason!

Jason wanted to walk where it was flat and easy, but as soon as he spied any rocks it was 'up! up! carry me!' And of course, he doesn't want Dad, he wants Mom. Nothing like adding 30 lbs to your hip for a hike :) Jason had also decided last week in the 100 degree heat that it was too hot for him to walk, and I had to tote him everywhere. Because that's cooler, I guess? But back to our hike - not far up the trail is this nice board with lots of information about it and some neat tiles that kids had made to decorate the board with.
Along the way and up at the top where we stopped to rest Matt and I busied ourselves with taking pictures of our babies :)
It's beautiful up at the top, you can see for miles - facing west, back towards our town.
On the way back down, I managed to lose my sunglasses - they probably fell out of my pocket one of the many times I picked Jason up and down - but I found this!
He reminded me of Absalom from Alice and Wonderland - which then got me thinking about Halloween and what we're all going to be - we need to get started on that!

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And now for what feels like our weekly wildlife update - I was getting some things for dinner together while Matt got the grill going when he called me out to the garage. Sitting up on the pully for my bike was a HUMMINGBIRD of all things! The garage door was up for a while yesterday afternoon and it must have flown in & not been able to figure out how to get out. They are SO SMALL! Or as Jason said, 'it's so tiny and cute!'
Matt, being Matt of course, rescued the bird from our garage with a toy net and took it outside. The bird kindly stayed put so I could take a few pictures before he flew off :)
Oh - and the BEAR has been spotted near the jogging trail over at the county park. So I don't think I'll be running around the path over there for a while - I hope they find him and relocate him soon!