Saturday was an excellent day except for one challenge.We decided to all go on a hiking adventure to find Ammonite falls.
We did find this beautiful place and it was magical. The pictures above is Ammonite Falls. Nine of our children, my husband, our two dogs and I set out on a day hike with our picnic carried in a backpack. This is a place worth seeing, a place you can swim underneath the falls in the summer. If you look closely at the full waterfall picture to your middle, I am standing underneath it with my arms up on the left! My second oldest daughter said I look like a little leprechaun! Being outdoors makes me very happy! In the bottom picture to the right I'm laying in a tree! Yes this Mother gets around! (Ha ha) I just love the fact that our children are experiencing the outdoors, natures wonders and really internalizing the beauty we have all around us. During the first fifteen minutes of our walk, two of our older children that was with us, complained. "This is boring..... I don't want to walk anymore.....This sucks.....Why did we have to come here?" We often get complaints. I'm used to this. What I do know is, after awhile the complaints stop and eventually they're liking their day. (Even if they don't admit it) They do! I'm always explaining about how lucky they really are, to be able to walk, swim possibly underneath these falls, to witness the beauty and one day (even if it wasn't today) they will remember what they're blessed with. We're not a family that just sits around, that in itself is something that one day they'll remember. We do everything together. During our day all our children were amazing hikers. Our challenge wasn't our children. It was our bigger dog. We decided to take him because he's so sad when we leave home without him. He has the will and want to be with us. So he came and unfortunately fell down this hill. I thought for sure he couldn't walk out of there! My husband made a hoist with his leash around his belly, carrying most of his weight. Over 150 pounds! We were probably a good 5 km away from our van with hills, rocks and knots from tree roots throughout the trails. I thought for sure I would have to go for some help. It took us hours that should of been 3o minutes to reach our destination where we parked our van. The top right picture is my husband with our dog, Kong. They are just sitting in the middle of a hill. I felt so sorry for our dog. You could see his will within his soul as he would get up, move and fall on his face. Four times he fell down. Our children waited patiently as we moved slowly while Kong's legs shaked uncontrollably. Normally Kong stays home and joins us with walks around our loop. He's only three years old and is suffering from a undiagnosed sickness. We've had many tests done with no results and we fear the worst. Today was a great day but it was hard watching our dog struggle. It was definitely a challenge getting home but now while our dog curls up sleeping, he's happy. Happy because he was a part of our family today, unfortunately the last day he ventures out with us except to the vet for cancer testing. From having previous animals we know how hard it is to make decisions. So we have to know what's best first......right now we're undecided and hopeful that he can just relax laying underneath the sun. If our dog were to speak, I know he would say, "I had a great day" Just unconditional love, amazing spirit and not an unforgiven bone in our dogs body. I took many pictures and I will remember Ammonite falls, I know our children will too including our dogs.
We did find this beautiful place and it was magical. The pictures above is Ammonite Falls. Nine of our children, my husband, our two dogs and I set out on a day hike with our picnic carried in a backpack. This is a place worth seeing, a place you can swim underneath the falls in the summer. If you look closely at the full waterfall picture to your middle, I am standing underneath it with my arms up on the left! My second oldest daughter said I look like a little leprechaun! Being outdoors makes me very happy! In the bottom picture to the right I'm laying in a tree! Yes this Mother gets around! (Ha ha) I just love the fact that our children are experiencing the outdoors, natures wonders and really internalizing the beauty we have all around us. During the first fifteen minutes of our walk, two of our older children that was with us, complained. "This is boring..... I don't want to walk anymore.....This sucks.....Why did we have to come here?" We often get complaints. I'm used to this. What I do know is, after awhile the complaints stop and eventually they're liking their day. (Even if they don't admit it) They do! I'm always explaining about how lucky they really are, to be able to walk, swim possibly underneath these falls, to witness the beauty and one day (even if it wasn't today) they will remember what they're blessed with. We're not a family that just sits around, that in itself is something that one day they'll remember. We do everything together. During our day all our children were amazing hikers. Our challenge wasn't our children. It was our bigger dog. We decided to take him because he's so sad when we leave home without him. He has the will and want to be with us. So he came and unfortunately fell down this hill. I thought for sure he couldn't walk out of there! My husband made a hoist with his leash around his belly, carrying most of his weight. Over 150 pounds! We were probably a good 5 km away from our van with hills, rocks and knots from tree roots throughout the trails. I thought for sure I would have to go for some help. It took us hours that should of been 3o minutes to reach our destination where we parked our van. The top right picture is my husband with our dog, Kong. They are just sitting in the middle of a hill. I felt so sorry for our dog. You could see his will within his soul as he would get up, move and fall on his face. Four times he fell down. Our children waited patiently as we moved slowly while Kong's legs shaked uncontrollably. Normally Kong stays home and joins us with walks around our loop. He's only three years old and is suffering from a undiagnosed sickness. We've had many tests done with no results and we fear the worst. Today was a great day but it was hard watching our dog struggle. It was definitely a challenge getting home but now while our dog curls up sleeping, he's happy. Happy because he was a part of our family today, unfortunately the last day he ventures out with us except to the vet for cancer testing. From having previous animals we know how hard it is to make decisions. So we have to know what's best first......right now we're undecided and hopeful that he can just relax laying underneath the sun. If our dog were to speak, I know he would say, "I had a great day" Just unconditional love, amazing spirit and not an unforgiven bone in our dogs body. I took many pictures and I will remember Ammonite falls, I know our children will too including our dogs. 
What a wonderful memory! Such a lovely place...is it a wheelchair accessible trail? (my husband gets tired of bumping Kyle up stairs and other obstacles that we seem to find on the trails I always choose...)
ReplyDeleteSorry, it's not wheelchair friendly....
ReplyDelete