Lost in the Forest

I almost forgot to blog about our wild hike through the trails behind my parents house! 

We decided one morning to go out and explore the trails so we got everyone (my parents, my two sisters, the kids, and my sisters dog Max) dressed and put Graham in the Baby Bjorn and set off. There is a huge trail system behind their house and there are actually rumors that it might be made into a state park someday which would be awesome. Right now it is just some former logging property. It was a beautiful hike and we had a great time. 

 

We followed the marked trails all the way to the top and had an amazing view of the Canadian mountain ranges and then of Lake Whatcom and Bellingham. It was such a nice spot and flat too! John and I joked that we should built a house right there and we could hike down to my parents everyday.

Then we headed back and that is when things got interesting! We decided to go a different way and were doing great staying on the trails and heading along and then...depending on who you ask....we went off the trails and that is when we got lost. We started wandering around, around and around and after awhile started getting nervous. 

Graham hadn't eaten in four hours which was amazing for him and I didn't know how much longer he would last. We kept being silly so Peyton wouldn't think something was wrong and we kept just going down and hoping we would find something. We finally started hearing the road and headed towards there. We then did what you probably aren't supposed to do...we split up. My two sisters and the dog headed towards the road with instructions to walk back to the house and get the car and then head back and pick us up. Then the rest of us would find a safer way to the road. 

Well, we started heading down to the road and came across and house and their fence. We couldn't figure a way around the fence. All of the sudden we hear a woman calling and asking us if we needed help. We went into her yard and she invited us into her house and once we explained our situation she offered to take me and my dad back to the house (pick up my sisters along the way) to get the car while my mom, John, Peyton and Graham stayed at her house. We got in her car, found my sisters who made it a pretty good distance and then went to the house and I drove back (with a bottle) to get the rest. Then Peyton cried how she didn't want to leave the house because of all the cool toys (the woman had two little boys).

When we got home we realized that we had been gone for hours and once we got a map and looked at was probably our path we figured that we walked over three miles. I was super impressed with Peyton for walking that much and not getting upset. We all slept well that night for sure!