More Hiking!

It was another beautiful New England weekend, so we're trying to make the most out of the few weeks left of summer. We went hiking in northern New Hampshire in Waterville Valley. It was beautiful! It's a ski resort in the winter, but there's lots of hiking trails, too. This trail had a few waterfalls so off we went!

Starting off on the trail!

Me supporting Chick Fila :0)

The beginning of the trail passed by a few houses and one of them had this statue in their backyard. It was hilarious! The kids were all excited that we saw Bigfoot!

Just a little north of us you start seeing 'moose crossing' signs. We have a rule that if anyone sees a moose they get to pick something special that we do or have for dinner. We didn't really expect to see one, but...we did! We were literally 5 minutes in to the hike, just getting ready to turn into the woods when we heard this galloping coming straight at us!

We all just froze and watched as a young moose was charging right at us on the path! I don't think he was charging us to intimidate us, I think he was just running down the trail. Addison screamed and it stopped so fast it's back legs were sliding, kicking up dust. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen! After it stopped it just stood there for a minute looking at us as we were looking at him.

Then he just turned and started walking back the way it came. And this is why I love New Hampshire! It was the best way to start the hike! We laughed and laughed about it the whole day.

After we all calmed down about the charging moose, we continued the hike.

Picture on a rock.

Alexa slept for a little bit on the way to the trail, it took about 2 hours to get there, but she was still tired.

Arilyn brought her phone to get some pics of the waterfalls. She was trying to get a picture of a little stream.

Owen being silly saying 'listen here old man' to Shawn.

Crossing a bridge.

The trail followed a stream a lot of the way. So pretty!

Owen 

The girls hiking

Oh Addison- it is so hard to get a natural smile out of her. She always does this strained smile.

Me imitating Addison's smile.

We finally made it to the first cascades and had lunch on a big rock in the middle of the river. It was pretty neat and the kids loved it.

Owen eating

Addison stepped in deep mud on the trail. She was so mad that she got her hiking boots dirty. 

Alexa enjoying her juice.

Addison with a mouthful of pb&j

Family portrait on the rocks.

Family pics that didn't make the cut...funny faces.

Shawn always makes them say something silly like 'woodbooger' which is what they call bigfoot in another state. Then they always have funny faces.

Done with lunch and ready to move on.

Back on the trail.

Such a sweet face!

More waterfalls

And more waterfalls.

Shawn getting a little close to the edge!

Checking out the big waterfall.

It was very pretty.

Waterfalls

And back on the trail! 

Alexa was great the whole trip. She never cried and only whined when we were eating lunch because she wanted to get out and walk around like the other kids.

By this point, we had been hiking for a good 4.5 hours. The kids were reaching their limits. And this part of the trail was in the sun, so it was hot. Owen was not too happy about it :0)

Everyone looking tired...and starting to complain.

Addison- I'm not sure what she's doing.

The way back to the car was down a ski lift hill. The view was amazing, but the trail was pretty steep. I think I started complaining at this point :0)

Me and Arilyn. There were a ton of blackberry bushes down the hill. It was pretty.

I did like this part because Arilyn was getting tired and wanted me to hold her hand, so we spent the majority of the hill holding hands. Which doesn't sound like a big deal, but I hardly ever hold her hand anymore. I've always got smaller ones to hold or she doesn't want to, so it was really nice :0)

I thought this picture was neat- a deserted ski lift. All in all it was a great day with the highlight of everyone's day being the moose encounter!