Hiking Around the Hood

Wow, Thursday already! We are supposed to get some of our furniture delivered tomorrow - finally! I can't wait. Yesterday it rained all day, so I'm hoping it's not a day like that. I'll have to check the forecast. 

We're trying to get in to a routine here, now that Jason has started his government job. His commute to work is about 50 minutes and traffic can get pretty busy after a certain time, so we've tried to get up at 5am this week. Yesterday we didn't hear the alarm on his watch but we  managed to get up at 6am, so still an early morning. Today I have been up at 5am with Jason. He gets ready straight away, I come downstairs, put the coffee on and of course that means Bindi wakes up (she's still in the utility room at night because she isn't fully potty trained). She is a little minx at times (except when she's sleeping) so I've just had to put her back in her room as she is just in to everything here in the office!!

Anyway, I have more photos to share with you :-) Last Sunday we went for our first hike around the neighborhood. It is filled with hiking and biking trails. We bought hiking boots on Saturday (Kristen didn't get any, but she got some yesterday from Timberland) and set off for a 'little' walk, to break them in. It was really sunny and very warm, but there was a great breeze too - a cool one!! Still, we only managed about 45 minutes. Jason could have done longer, but we couldn't find the sunscreen when we came out so I was conscious of the fact that we were unprotected and I didn't want to be out in the sun too long. 

 

Of course, being in the outdoors, Kristen wanted to dress like a wolf! Jason took some pictures of me and Kristen on his phone, but I can't get access to them! So I only have pictures of the two of them on the hike.

Well, because I don't have the other photos from the hike, I'll share with you some I took on Wednesday, as Kristen and I walked around the neighborhood. 

 

I didn't take pictures of the walk, but here is what I did take. I've noticed the trees are starting to turn color! These bushes are actually called 'scrub oak' here. I think they are kind of like the cedar trees/shrubs we had in TX, but these lose their leaves (the cedar doesn't). 

 The fence belongs to our neighbors. I took this from the side of our driveway. Colors on the hill are showing up too. It's strange because everything to the right of us still looks green.

My tomboy, ;-) sitting on the wall at the side of our house. 

We picked pine cones that had dropped from our tree!!

You can see the tree here, (we have two tall pine trees, the other you can see in the upper right corner) and this is the back of our house. Another view below.

 

These pretty wild poppies are in the yard too, but only these two! We did see more when we were out walking. 

I think that's lots of photos for today. It's 6.30am now, and still rather dark outside. I'll be getting Kristen up at 7am and starting school at 8. But the great thing is, it doesn't matter if we start late ;-) I am loving home school. Perhaps I'll talk about that more next time.