Caesar's Head

Caesar's Head State Park has always been a favorite hiking destination for Doug and me. This is where we got engaged 6 1/2 years ago on a cold February backpacking and camping trip! Since then, we have hiked in that area a number of times, but always on the same trails. We decided about 9:00am on Sunday morning that we wanted to go for a hike to finish my week long birthday celebrations! All the places we were looking to go were over 2 hours away. Table Rock, Caesar's Head, and Paris Mountain were the obvious choices for their proximity to Greenville. We opted for Caesar's Head, but decided to head in the direction of Raven Cliff Falls. There were several really nice views into the valley of the changing colors of the leaves, but mostly we had views of bare trees and leaves on the ground. This did not bother Callen too much at all. He has come to love playing in the leaves when he and Doug blow leaves in the front yard.

We carried Cal in his pack on the way towards the falls. We had a short rest and lunch break at the area overlooking the falls. It quickly became too cold and windy for Cal to sit still. After hiking out about a mile, we stopped and took Cal out of the pack to let him run his legs and play in the leaves. He had a BLAST! He picked up every stick he could see, and even attempted to pull tree roots on the trail thinking they were sticks. He has replaced ninja sticks (cut lumber) with sticks from the ground as his new favorite toy. We constantly hear 'sti, sti' every time we walk outside and see sticks on the ground. He used his sticks to hit rocks, play in the dirt, and hit at the leaves. 

Cal felt he was going to become dehydrated on his ride in. He drank from the Camelback spout the entire time!

Raven Cliff Falls

Happy to be outside! (and playing in the leaves and with a stick)

After a little while of standing and playing, we started to hike out. We kept Cal out of the pack to see how far he would go on his own. Doug and I were impressed with him. He walked a good distance on his own and didn't fall hardly at all. He wanted to step up and over every tree root and rock on the trail. Often times he became distracted at something off to the side of the trail, so we began using his stick as a leash. He would hold the stick, and we would pull it, making him follow us. After a while, you could see Cal getting more and more tired. We strapped him back into the pack, and hiked the rest of the way out. Before too long Cal was OUT! As long as I was walking, Callen would sleep. As soon as I stopped to let someone by on the trail, he would open his eyes and look around to figure out why his sleep was being interrupted!

Guiding Cal with his stick

DONE!

It was a great day hiking with my boys! It was so awesome to see Cal finally log some miles yards in the woods. He really seems to love hiking, whether he is in his pack riding along or walking along side of us. Doug and I are thrilled about this because we enjoy a nice hike. This one was perfect...fairly flat (although I felt it was a constant uphill climb on the way out with an extra 30+ lbs on my back!) and a great view at the end. Now if we can only figure out the weather for hiking. It is either 100 deg and 95% humidity or freezing!

Happy Halloween...almost a week late!

Not sure where this week went, but I am just sitting down to post pictures from Halloween.

We have not given Callen candy yet, so we figured we didn't need to take him door to door trick-or-treating. He wasn't going to eat it, and I didn't need to eat every fun size candy bar that came into the house! We opted to walk up to the local Mexican restaurant for dinner with Cal dressed in costume. We did walk around so he could see kids dressed up, as well as see a few of our friends and their kids.

For Cal's costume, I knew he would not keep anything on his head or wear any kind of costume. We had been given a leather jacket as a hand-me-down, so I had the idea of him being an airplane pilot. We then thought to make his wagon into a B-24 bomber. Doug did some awesome work with cardboard!!

People loved his costume and all the kids were walking by saying how cool it was. Doug was so excited when one guy pointed out that it was a B-24. We hope to continue making homemade costumes for as long as possible. I know there will come a point that Cal will want one from the racks of Target, but a homemade costume is so much more fun and special.

After returning home from dinner and walking around, we had a few trick-or-treaters come to the house. Cal would go to the door with me, and then put candy in the bags of the trick-or-treaters. Thank goodness he had no idea candy was in the bags, or he would not have given them up so easily!
We hope everyone had a fun evening...and recovering from the sugar coma by this point in the week!