Dog Mountain, Kids, Dog Mountain, Kids...

Yes, that's pretty much my life right now as you can see from my posts and pictures :-)

I've been sick all week. The only exercise has been in the form of dog walks. I was intent on getting a hike in this weekend, so...
At 4:50A!M! the freaking alarm went off.
At 4:51 a.m. Steve was still trying to get me to wake up to turn it off.
At 4:52 a.m. I had stumbled into the kitchen to turn on the coffee before plopping myself down on the couch to fall back asleep.
At 4:53 a.m. I heard a happy (and highly fevered) voice of Jack "Hi Mama! Aren't you glad I'm finally up?!?!"
At 4:54 a.m. I had children's tylenol in him and the cuddling started.

So...instead of getting an early start, I was watching Ben 10 Alien Force with a little boy who couldn't fall back asleep. I finally got out of the house at 6:20am and remembered the benefit of such early morning alarm clocks ringing

Bad pic, but you can tell the colors of my morning sky!! This was viewed to the constant coughing up of lung butter, but by the time we hit the trailhead, my lungs were clean and clear.

By 8:25am, I had a phone call from the girl child telling me she needed me home NOW to take care of her (sorry kiddo, I'm half way up a mountain)
and by 8:30am, Ki and I came to our first lookout

and took a seat on our favorite "Free My Soul" bench,

where we saw one lone bloomed balsamroot. I know this hill will be covered within a few weeks! Can't wait!!

We summited by 9:15. I finally got smart and brought myself two lunches (or I guess breakfast in this case) so that if Ki stole one, I could still eat. Actually, I made what I thought she would like and I was right. She gobbled up that turkey on whole wheat wrap with a generous amount of cream cheese and ate it so fast she started choking. Nice. Maybe today I'll get to use that Dog CPR I learned last month.
While she worked it all out, I was free to enjoy my tuna sandwich without interruption. Perfect!

Headed down the mountain with no troubles, a nice chat with Dad on the phone and then back to the trailhead and an uneventful trip home. I'm still not ready for St. Helens. I guess I usually go in pretty unprepared for most things, so it's not like it will be a first for me...