A Very Fun Summer Day Trip

“Nature hike to see a waterfall.” CHECK.

Today we took it upon ourselves to be able to check off one of the items on our Summer 2010 Family Fun To Do List. And the end result was way better than simply a check mark–  we had an awesome Summer Sunday. A very fun, very cool, very adventurous, very memorable summer day trip was had by all of us five J-Ms. We spent the day in Jim Thorpe, PA. After a fun lunch in town we spent the rest of the day at Lehigh Gorge State Park. We did a serious hike (like, probably way too serious for 2 six year olds and a 2 year old in a backpack that she’s right on the verge of growing out of) to Glen Onoko Falls. The boys are completely amazing hikers and we could probably do just about anything with them (anything that we ourselves could do, anyway). But with Meera along we’re pretty severely limited– she is not digging the backpack too much these days (although today we forced her to stay in it for the entire hike despite some periods of protest from her), and she’s just way too little to actually hike anything much at all beyond a simple walking path. Today, though, it all magically came together for us and worked out. She never napped the entire day (unheard of!), and still she was relatively cooperative (or at least tolerant) of the backpacking part of the excursion. Braydon deserves the real medal, though, for doing a very serious (and at times, quite dangerous!) hike with a 27-pound baby on his back! The pay-off was huge though—   we got to experience an awesome (truly exhilarating!) hike, see very beautiful waterfalls, and then — at the end — hang out for a couple of hours along the shore of a beautiful river. We headed back into Jim Thorpe for ice cream. And then came home for pizza, baths, and bed. Really, we can’t think of much better than this day for our family on a Sunday in Summer.