Hiking and Other Outdoor Fun

There isn't a whole lot going on in our household right now, but for the sake of posting some darling pictures of Bryant, I thought I better update our blog. We have had some absolutely beautiful weather in Central Oregon, especially these last few weeks and, knowing the cold snowy days of winter are likely just around the corner, we have been taking every opportunity to get out and enjoy the sunshine.
Jeremy has a big elk hunt this week, and in preparation for that hunt, the three of us went out on a hiking/scouting trip last Saturday. It was so warm and wonderful, it almost felt like early summer and Bryant did awesome in the backpack. We were probably out for about 3 hours and Jeremy and I split the time carrying Bryant on our backs. I have to say that there is a HUGE difference between early in the summer when I was trekking up Black Butte with Bryant on my back and this Fall. He is so heavy in that backpack, but it was way worth it to get us all outside and having fun together. The area we hiked in is the former site of the B&B fire, I think it was about 4 years ago, so there was a lot of soot and burned wood, we were all covered in it by the time the hike was over. When we got to a spot where we decided to head back, we took Bryant out to play around a little before the trek back to the car, he loved being free to roam around, but the unsteady ground of the great outdoors wreaked havoc with the unstable balance one year olds are prone to. He found lots of rocks and sticks and all in all it was a really fun afternoon.
This afternoon Bryant and I ventured out for a walk with our friends Angel, Madison and Zoey. At the end of the walk we played for a while at a new playground just down the street from our house. The playground is awesome for little tykes because it has two little, and I do mean little slides and the whole thing is surrounded by mounds of bark chips, perfect for little bodies constantly falling down. Bryant crawled up the stairs to the little slides, turned around, got on his tummy and backed his way down the slide, it was adorable and he was so proud of himself. He would only do it once of course before he was interested in other endeavors, so of course I wasn't able to take a picture or record it!

Well, I think that about catches you all up to speed. The weather is supposed to take a turn tomorrow, no snow, but the rain and wind will likely keep us home bound for a few days. Hope you are all enjoying lots of sunshine!!

Our Little Lion Cub

Our little lion put on quite a show for Halloween. Sisters has this darling little trick or treat parade for all the little ones in town. It is at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and most of the merchants in town participate by dressing up and handing out candy to the kiddos in their costumes. It takes about an hour to walk through and trick or treat and it was all I could do to keep Bryant awake. It was a beautiful day, almost 60 degrees, perfect to be out and about. Bryant was accompanied by his two friends, Madison and Zoe, who are twin girls born 2 days before he was. You'll see the three of them all dressed as animals, Madison is the Monkey and Zoe is the Giraffe. We joked that we had Noah's Ark in stroller, it was adorable.

I think by far Bryant's favorite thing about Halloween was the pumpkins, he was fascinated by them. The pumpkins were expertly carved by Jeremy and I, Jeremy carved the Jeep (on the chair) and Noah's Ark (bottom right) and I carved the smiley face.

Bryant and I worked for three days to perfect the Lion Roar that would need to accompany his costume and he got it down pretty good, but as with all cute things that kids do, they never want to do it on command. I think I did a pretty good job of capturing his roar on the video. The roar slightly resembles a cough, but nevertheless, he is very proud of himself!! We also worked on Boo, but it sounds a lot more like Ba. :-)

Not only did Bryant have his first experience with trick or treating and pumpkins, but I am pretty sure he is still coming down off a sugar high. That's right, Bryant had candy, and actually quite a lot of it. It is safe to say that he enjoys candy (I think he must take after his mommy!!)

At the end of the day, Bryant's cousins Hudson and Bevyn came by so we could see their costumes. Bryant was totally fine with their costumes, as long as Hudson didn't have his mask on. Hudson was a Ninja warrior and Bevyn was Cinderella. You'll see in the picture Bryant running towards the camera crying and Hudson off to the right with his mask on. As soon as Hudson took off the mask, Bryant was a happy camper.
Most of the pictures and video don't show it very well, but Bryant's face is pretty scraped up. He fell into a closet door the night before Halloween and then he fell on the sidewalk getting ready to go trick or treating and scraped up his nose. Not to mention this morning he fell off a step stool and went nose first to the floor. Poor little fella, I guess that's all in the day of a one year old!