Cold Hike

Today began early. Madeleine was ready to go at 5:30, so she and I let Mom sleep in while we watched 45 minutes worth of mind-numbing kid's shows. The good news was that the early start allowed the three of us to make 7:30 mass for the second week in a row. The bad news was that Gracie decided to let us know that she too needed to get out of the house by completely destroying a Pottery Barn Kids catalog while we were gone. Not that I can blame her. The prices are ridiculous.

This morning's weather was cold and overcast, but nice. So with Gracie's need to chase unfamiliar squirrels and our need for some family time, we decided a hike was in order. Earlier this summer, we purchased a Ketly FC3 Kid Carrier for our trip to Jackson. We now had a new one sitting in the basement due to a warranty issue with the original and it needed to be broken in. Shortly after pulling the tags off the replacement and bringing it upstairs, Madeleine reminded us how much she loves this thing by having Erin load her up... in our living room. I wish I had a picture as it was quite funny... until we tried to remove her. She had a fit, and we had to reload her. And yes, she had a fit again when I took her out the second time to load up the car.

After Erin's cravings for Qdoba were satisfied, we headed over to the Tyson side of the Chubb. We put a hat and gloves on the girl and figured that between those and her nice Patagonia fleece jacket, she would be good. We were wrong. We did a 4 mile hike and she slept the second 2 miles, not unusual when Daddy's lugging her around. But when she woke up, she just had this look. Erin thought she was sad. I joked she was frozen. Turns out I should not have been joking. When we got back to the car, we realized that she was, in fact, freezing. Her torso was fine, but the poor kid's hands and lower legs were frigid. Oops.

Fortunately, the Land Cruiser has good heat and we all thawed out quickly. Do they make Windstopper fleece or 800 fill down jackets in size 18 months?


Happy Camper:

Happy Gracie:

The look:


Helping to clean house after the thaw: