What it looks like to be "outdoorsy" with two kids

So we live in these beautiful mountains with lakes and hiking trails galore, but still find it hard to get out and do anything outdoors with our schedule and the two kids. Lately, though, we've just decided to spontaneously get out instead of analyzing who will miss naps and what kind of five-food-group meal needs to be packed. Last week we went up Blue Mountain and waded in the water while Ryan fished. We've been wanting to check out Rock Creek, which is a blue-ribbon trout stream (not quite sure what that means except the fishing's good) so we spent some time up there last weekend when Aunt Missy was visiting (those are the pictures with the drawbridge). We celebrated the 4th by rafting the Clark Fork River with some friends. At this point in the summer, the river is low enough that the rapids are really minor and the kids had a great time. And earlier this week, in a stunning display of early-morning gusto we hiked up the M.

For those of you who aren't from Montana, most cities here with adjacent foothills have a letter or two on the mountain pertaining to a highschool or college and a trail up to it. The M (for the University of Montana) trail allows you to view the entire city and surrounding valley and mountains. We wanted to have fairly low expectations with Bridger hiking it himself and Asher was in the backpack. The trail is "easy" for seasoned hikers, but steep switchbacks are not kind to those of us who just aren't in college hiking shape anymore. We stopped fairly frequently, but still made it up the 3/4 mile trail in less than 30 minutes. It was nice to have the kids as our excuse for going it slowly, especially when the iron-man senior citizens passed us. Hope they didn't notice I was panting even though I'm 28 years old didn't have a 25lb child on my back. Bridger really enjoyed the sense of accomplishment--working through something difficult and prevailing. We hope to continue hiking short trails around the valley and hopefully gaining our mountain legs.