Snoqualmie Valley Trail

I relish the fact that we have managed to keep our Saturdays free for yet another year.From the conversations I've been having with many friends lately, we are definitely in the minority! Sela does have her tennis team late in the afternoon, but it's a five minute drive and I never have to bring the other kids. I really enjoy just watching her play for an hour. It's a treat for me. She is starting to enjoy whipping up on the boys..I love it!

We had a gorgeous day on Saturday, despite the forecast of rain. We did a poll to see what the kids wanted to do as a family and bike ride won out. Of course there were a couple dissenters, as usual, but they reluctantly came along. Sometimes just getting on the road is the hardest part. Everyone loves to bike, but sometimes it's hard to pull away from things the kids get going on at home, which is understandable.



Zig took us to the Snoqualmie Valley Trail, and there was some grumbling about that too. Nina was really lobbying to ride to a farmer's market...presumably because the possibility of getting treats exists. But we headed to Duvall and hopped on this beautiful trail that runs along the Snoqualmie River adjacent to miles and miles of beautiful farmland. It was lush and beautiful and just a perfect trail for kids. We saw one of our friends on the trail and he said you can follow this trail to Idaho or something crazy like that. We didn't make it that far, but we had a great time and it just felt so rejuvenating to be together out in the fresh air with the sun shining.


Nina playing on the rope swing at a park along the route.



There are many pit-stops with kids.

Zig made some friends.

Evan is not a big fan of the Burley trailer, so as soon as he gets a taste of freedom, he's off!

Snacks...again.

Unfortunately, as we finally got all the gear loaded and bikes on, we realized it was near lunchtime and we hadn't packed food. Rather than stopping somewhere and wasting time (and increasing the chances of hitting rain), we quickly emptied the refrigerator. We had quite the variety of snacks, and the cold pizza was in high demand. 





We ended at the park near the river. We all started back to the car to load up and somehow Nina and Rollin did not see us turn into the parking lot. Still not sure how, but they got confused and booked it back down the trail. Meanwhile, Zig and I assumed thought they were dinking around nearby and we didn't look for them for about 10 minutes. We had no idea they were headed the opposite direction and back down the trail. They must have been flying because we had to go find them and Zig and I were totally out of breath trying to catch them. I kept asking bikers and runners we were passing if they had seen two little kids on bikes and everyone commented on how fast these two little bandits were going. When we got to them, they had just turned around and said they had been praying because they knew they were lost and Nina was almost in tears. Probably a good lesson for them to experience what it feels like to be lost, and we had a nice long chat about what to do should that happen again.

We played some tennis later in the evening and called it a night. Everyone was nice and tired. That's my kind of  Saturday!