AWOL

AWOL: absent without leave. This was me. This was the definition of my life this past weekend. I ran away. I packed my family up, and I ran away. Away from work, away from the phone, away from my routine, far away. My father-in-law and my nephew joined us in our get-a-way. You see, I needed a break. From everything. I needed to find a spot in the world where my mind could rest. A spot where it could be uninterrupted, and empty. I found it; however, when we reached our destination we decided to go even farther. We decided to set out on foot and walk into the mountain. Our goal was to find a lake that we had not yet seen. This was a hefty goal considering we had a young man with little legs in tow, and the farther we went the harder it became. We kept climbing though for several miles. We ran into a mama moose and her baby. Luckily she trotted off in the trees with her baby scampering behind her, and so we kept going. Eventually we ran into snow, and we had to stop and play. My two favorite boys and my nephew climbed into the snow and threw snowballs in June. In their shorts!

Unfortunately, the snow prohibited us from reaching our desired destination. This little bit of snow turned into several feet of snow, and we could no longer hike on the trail. Although we were disappointed, we were not defeated. It was still an adventure, and we needed it. After turning around and allowing gravity to pull us back down the mountain we decided to stop at a creek that we had passed by earlier and let the kids soak their aching feet in the cold water. What a beautiful place.

During our hike Lou and Doop had a mishap that involved a couple of large rocks and Lou's hand. It was smashed, and there was quite a bit of blood. Lou is tough though and she only cried a little considering her injury, and Doop couldn't apologize enough. So, at the end of our hike she let me take her picture. Notice the red eye and worn out look. Being tough takes a lot out of you. I'm pretty sure I have felt like she looks before. I love her.

And Seej, well she was pretty steady. She only had a couple of times when she really wanted to quit, but all in all she did really good.

As for Doop. What did you expect? This is Doop we're talking about, and true to form he came up with a look that summed up his whole hike. Well, the part where he walked anyway.

And JM. He impressed me the most. He continually encouraged everyone to keep going, and for the biggest part of our journey he carried Doop on his neck. He is still paying the price for doing this since he still cannot turn his head to the left, but it's just the kind of dad he is. When he wasn't carrying Doop he was taking care of Lou or Seej, and constantly checking on me as well to make sure I was safe and okay. We are a lucky bunch to have him in our lives, and I'm so glad he came with us.

I could have stayed in this spot for a very long time. It brought me much needed peace.

I was pretty relaxed after our long hike. In fact, I slept really well except for the aching in my hips, knees, foot and ankle. No really I'm so glad I did it, but we decided with help from the kids to go from the backwoods to the beach. Doesn't this look relaxing? The "beach" just before sunset. It was so nice sitting with JM in the sand watching the kids play with the sun on my back. No where to go, no deadlines to meet, and nothing to worry about. This was so needed, and so worth it. I now completely understand going AWOL.