hiking disaster

last thursday martha, henry & maggie the moose (martha's dog) came to bellingham for a visit. we took the kids and dogs on a hike after lunch that quickly proved to be a comedy of errors.

our little human and dog creatures were running through the woods, happy as can be for about the first 10 minutes of the hike. riley then decided to hide behind a tree, (which she loves to do on hikes), and wanted me to come find her. as i was walking over to where she was hiding i heard her whimpering and when i got to her she told me she just had an accident. this is pretty rare for her anymore so i didn't have a single thing with me on the hike (including my camera which is why all these photos were taken with my phone!). she is ultra sensitive to any kind of wetness so she could not be convinced to hike in her wet pants. we stripped her down to her shirt and shoes and decided to turn around. the wet clothes went into the dog poop bag!

the nakedness did not stop the fun, however. we made our way back to the car where martha had some extra clothes of henry's. after dressing her in swim trunks, socks and nikes, we made our way to the lake where the dogs are allowed to swim. martha and i sat down and before we knew it riley and henry were splashing their feet in the water. we warned them this would make their shoes/feet wet (no we were not smart enough to take off their shoes) but they continued on their merry way. the feet splashing quickly turned into full-on jumping in the water. they were shrieking and squealing with delight, so we were obviously not going to stop them.

the jumping quickly led to kneeling then sitting in the water. it was awesome.

in the meantime doc was chasing the ducks and maggie was close behind. he almost got one.

after the water episode they begged to play on the playground, so of course we obliged then carried their wet bodies back to the car and stripped them naked for the car ride home.

after a bath at home they ran all around the house with towels on their heads shouting "super cape". they were being silly and having so much fun then went to play in riley's room. i was putting my feet up on the couch while martha started a load of laundry. i heard them playing in riley's room and both martha and i remember having a vague thought of "i wonder if henry needs a diaper on?". next thing i know i hear riley say, "henry, is that your poop?" she then says, "you better go tell your mom". at this point i start shouting for martha while i race to riley's room. we both get there right as maggie is about to eat henry's big poop on the floor. martha takes maggie and i take henry into the bathroom and proceed to clean him up.

somehow the combination of martha & i and our two children together always leads to lots of chaos and disaster. but not bad disaster, just funny craziness. we always wonder what other moms think of us when they see us with our crazy and dis-shelved children. oh well, at least we have lots of laughs!

this last picture is un-related, but just about sums up my daughter. we were hanging out in the backyard friday afternoon after lunch and i was sitting on the patio and riley was playing. she loves to lay on this little ball crawl thing we have. i asked her to come over to me, and her reply was, "no mommy, i can't, i'm resting".