Back over Thanksgiving last year, Chris, Brenson, my dad, and my brother went on a few hikes at some local trails. One place they went was the Redbud Valley Preserve about 30 minutes from us. Chris said at the time that he'd like to take the whole family there to explore and hike, but we never made it happen. When we woke up Saturday morning with no plans for the day, we decided it was the day to finally visit the Redbud Valley Preserve!
The park and trails should only be about a 30 minute drive for us from our house. However, our route was being blocked by a stopped train. We are very accustomed to dealing with trains around here as there are several active and busy tracks that run through our town, but we aren't used to trains that are completely stopped! We detoured around the train, and it added about 40 minutes to our drive. It was frustrating, but we finally made it to the trail!
The Nelsons are ready for an adventure!
Funny thing about the above photo: It always take several attempts to get a decent family photo, especially if we're trying to take it ourselves in selfie mode. While we were trying to get everyone squeezed together for the photo, something moved on that sign behind us, and Brianna lost her mind. She was screaming and jumping and freaking out because it was a snake! And yes, it was a snake but it was literally four inches long and not even as big around as a pencil, lol! Chris and I just kind of looked at each other like, "If this is going to be her response to every little creature we see, it may be a long morning!" Haha!
As we started down the trail, we couldn't help but notice how beautiful it was!
This area is very rocky, and there are many places in the rocks for the kids to explore and crawl in. It wasn't what I was expecting at all!
Love these times together!
The weather was warm, but not miserable at all considering it's August. And it was seriously so pretty out there!
One day while on their hike in Colorado last month, they guys got caught in an intense hail storm. They were above the timber line, so they had to seek shelter under a rock. The whole experience was super scary for Brenson, and from what I understand there were lots of tears from him. He has said several times that it was the worst part of the trip, and he also still brings it up almost daily. While we were hiking last Saturday, he kept finding places that would make good shelter in case a hail storm suddenly came up!
The photo below is my favorite one from our little excursion. Many of the rock bluffs had big tree roots coming off of them. Brenson kept trying to climb them, but didn't quite have the strength to do it. After several attempts, Chris decided to show him how it's done and shimmied right up one of the roots. As you can see from the looks on their faces, the children were impressed! There was also a man and his grandson watching, and that man was pretty wowed as well. I love that I captured their expressions in this photo, and every time I look at that man's face it makes me laugh!
Navigating through the rocks made the kids feel like we were on the greatest adventure ever! I love how everything is so exciting and fun to kids :-).
After walking along and on the rock bluffs for what seemed like a long time, the trail opened up into a more flat, wooded area. Brecklyn was grumpy in the photo below because another family had stopped to have snacks, and she had decided that she wanted a snack too. We did pack snacks and water with us, but we wanted to take a photo before busting them out. Sigh.
When Chris thought there was only about a mile of trail left, he and the big kids decided to jog the remainder of the way. They are training for a trail run they've signed up to do over Labor Day weekend, so they wanted to take advantage of being on a trail. Brooke, Brecklyn, and I let them jog ahead while we continued to hike. The twins didn't love this, and were quite relieved when we met back up with them at the van.
We hiked for about 2 1/2 hours total, and all the kids thought it was fantastic! It was really the perfect length for a little outing for us, and we hope to do it more in the future!
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