Getting Started

This year I decided to try to help our girls' summer have more structure, fun, and outdoor time. Growing up in Girl Scouting, I logged more trail miles than I ever imagined (or kept track of), and I missed hiking. To be honest, I'm not really all that "in" to exercising. I'll run if I'm being chased by someone I'm fairly certain I can't hold my own against, or if there's a score involved (I did play softball for years), but otherwise I hate it. The whole gym scene? Not my thing. I have lots of friends and acquaintances who swear their lives are forever changed by Couch-to-5K or Crossfit, but I get nauseous just thinking about those things! But put a pack on my back, solid shoes or boots on my feet, and trail in front of me and I'm a very, very happy woman. There's something almost meditative about it for me. I also am really fond of yoga, but in my crazy busy life fitting in a yoga class sans kids is tricky tricky tricky. And practicing at home is a no-go between the dog and the kids unless I want to wake up at 5AM (which I really, REALLY don't).

So, my grand idea is a weekly hike with our kids. And just to make it more interesting, I've issued open invitations to friends and their kids too. In my more grandiose moments, I'm envisioning some Volksmarch kind of thing, but in reality it will probably just be a series of weekly hikes, occasionally accompanied by friends and their kids. Some of those hikes will be great, some will be complete duds, but hopefully when all is said and done we'll have had a great time overall.

I'm going to chronicle our hikes here, and when I remember I'll take pictures =). I've called this blog Hiking (Slowly) with Some Kids because a lot of the people involved will be novices, and if you've ever taken a walk with a child you know stopping every 10min to look at something "super duper uper schmuper cool!!!" is inevitable.