Quality Floor Time With Daddy

When we got home from our mini vacation on Thursday evening after a long fun day, Daddy and Baby got started on a new project; replacing the kitchen floor tiles. Mummy snuck in for picture sessions while unwinding with a book and a beer in the bedroom.

Baby very carefully watched how Daddy was using his scraper to pry up the old crumbly tiles.

And then she watched as he thew away the broken pieces, clutching her Doctor Who DVDs closely.

Once she had it figured out, Baby took the scraper away from Daddy and got to work.

In amused amazement and with considerable fatherly pride, Daddy watched as his little girl pried up the tiles, threw the pieces behind her, pried up some more and stopped to throw the pieces away before prying up more.

A couple times she got stuck but she'd just move onto another tile while Daddy got the tricky one for her.

They were having a blast, giggling occasionally and making good progress on the floor.

My two hard workers.

Of course when I came along with the camera, Baby decided she was done and abandoned Daddy for the evening. But over the weekend they tackled the floor, completely removing all the old flooring {even under the stove and fridge which Daddy had to do while Baby was occupied elsewhere}. At one point, Baby was gathering up the paper off the back of the new tiles and was throwing it away fro Daddy.

He was very proud of his little helper.

She was just happy to help her Daddy and spend some quality one-on-one time with him. They spent the evenings after work cuddling.

The Girl With The Red Balloon is Mine

After our hiking adventure in the previous post, we had to relax a bit at the hotel room before we sallied out for dinner. 

We decided to order take-out from Black Bear Diner, where we'd never been before. They had a little gift shop area and while we waited for our food, the baby decided she had to reorganize all the teddy bears she could reach. The hostess thoughts he was really cute so she gave Baby a free red balloon.

Baby loved that and carried it around for the rest of the visit, out into the car, the short ride over to the market for drinks and doughnuts for breakfast, and back to the hotel room.

It was raining when we headed into the restaurant which we loved. But it had stopped by the time we came back out and night was falling. It had been awhile since I'd been driving out after dark; I really enjoyed it.

Baby ran around our hotel room with her balloon and occasionally one of her stuffed animals, nibbling little samples of our surprisingly good food.

Earlier on the way home from our hike, she had dumped an entire bottle of water out of herself and had to have a clothes change. She didn't seem to mind much.

Daddy had discovered that Baby was learning how to do a high five so after dinner they had a game of high five going on. I had to take pictures and a video for him.

Obviously Baby was very happy.

And so was Daddy. The hike had worn us out so we all slept very well that night.

An Adventurous Hike

This past week my husband took time off from work so we could have a little mini vacation. We hung out with my siblings at the Colfax Railroad Days vending which was pretty fun, and then celebrated my brother's 20th birthday on Monday before popping off a half hour's drive to stay at a hotel for three days. On the first day we relaxed, settled into the room, enjoyed the baby's suspicious looks as she tentatively explored the room, and then went for a walk around Historic Downtown. We even stopped at a fun little candy shop and tried some new treats.

On the second day, we loaded into the car after breakfast and went hiking along the American River. The baby was really excited about our outing.

She was also interested in the camera.

Until she discovered her new sneakers.

When we came across a very interesting divided oak, we set her up in the fork for a quick photo session and she was not at all happy about that. Daddy sweet talked her into relaxing.

After that she was more interested in looking at the moss than in taking pictures.

They still looked really cute together though.

The baby was frustrated at the start of the walk because she wanted to walk and it was too steep for her. We had another pause when we found this lovely twisted manzenita bush.

And of course took plenty of pictures.

Daddy was having a good day out in the beautiful woods with his girls.

He had to get some pictures of them so I got the baby.

She started to squirm though so we had to keep walking.

The trail was dusty in places and very smooth in others. It was narrow, usually only traveled on by mountain bikers or hikers in single file. We passed one guy jogging. In a few spots the trail was steep and had sharp rocks sticking up but we navigated it all fairly easily.

We loved seeing all the twisty old bushes along the trail.

Some even curved up and over it in an enchanting archway.

This made for the ideal photo.

Or maybe two.

We passed a sign marking a junction of our trail with a longer one. We thought that was pretty cool.

After climbing a particularly steep rocky bit and doing some looping around, we found a little creek we'd heard at the head of the trail. It was so calm and peaceful right there, so cool and very lush. The green was such a welcome sight when everywhere else is all dead and brown.

We took some more pictures.

And Daddy climbed down onto some rocks. The baby loves the water and was fascinated by it. But we didn't let her play in it.

After chatting with a friendly mountain biker for awhile, we continued up the trail a bit. It was smoother and flatter so we put the baby down and coaxed her to walk on her own without holding hands. She had a lot of fun doing that and ran around.

We spotted lots of interesting little things, like these odd things hanging from a branch. They looked like a lot of dandelion seed clusters.

The baby had by then tripped about three times so she decided it was safer to hold hands again. Over some of the steeper bits she asked to be carried and we happily obliged.

On the way back, it started to sprinkle and did so for a refreshing {although terribly brief} twenty minutes.

We love nothing better than to be out in the woods for a walk on a cool cloudy day and have it lightly drizzle on us. It makes us so happy.

We set the baby up in a different oak on the way back. She wasn't too certain about that but she knew I was right there behind her holding her steady.

She smiled for her Daddy.

Being the rather big boy he is sometimes, Husband had to climb into the tree for himself.

And he wanted his baby too.

She was a lot more comfortable in his arms.

But she didn't really want to hold still and smile for Mummy.

He took a couple pictures of us to make up for it.

This is the trail sign we passed when we started the hike.

We had to walk back down the hill to our car which was considerably easier than walking up the hill had been.

Husband took lost of pictures while Mummy tried to keep up with the baby who was trying to race gravity and run down the hill as fast as her short legs would go.

Daddy eventually noticed that we'd be a cute picture running down the hill {well, she ran, I walked} so he took a picture and a video of us. The baby wore herself out but she didn't want to get back in the car and go home. We swung by the library that same day and she decided that the puzzle pieces in the kids' area were great for subtly licking. Daddy had to make her stop and go track Mummy down in the poetry section.