Walking Trails

The weather has been great - maybe a little on the too-warm side, but very sunny and beautiful. Because it's supposed to start raining again in the next day or so, I wanted to take advantage of my day off and go for a nice walk with my family. There happens to be the Rock Creek Trail just a short drive down the road from us and we hadn't checked it out yet, so that was our goal for the day.

We packed a small lunch to take with us and hit the trail. It's a fairly long, paved trail and shaded just enough to make it pleasant. Aiden was a little disappointed, as the Hillsboro Parks and Rec website said there would be ducks and herons, but we didn't see any.

We ate our lunch on a bench halfway through our walk and had an enjoyable couple of hours. The boys wanted to stay in the double stroller the whole time and they spent most of the walk pointing things out to each other and making each other laugh. It was pretty cute. Towards the end of the walk, Aiden leans over to Nathan and gives Nathan's head a big hug and says, "You're the best family ever, baby". So sweet!

I had some Baskin Robbins gift certificates from Mother's Day last year, so we decided that would be a nice treat for all of us. We enjoyed our cones and Nathan proceeded to get very sticky indeed. But that's when the afternoon began to go downhill. I had developed a slight headache partway through our walk (I was probably just a little dehydrated) and it wasn't feeling like it was close to getting any better. We left Baskin Robbins and Nathan wanted to walk to the car. Well, he didn't have any shoes on and I wasn't about to let my (nearly)18 month old walk on the hot pavement with bare feet. So he was carried and that made him really mad. As he was buckled into the car, he launched into a HUGE tantrum, screaming and shrieking the whole drive home. In the 5 minutes it took us to get from Baskin Robbins to our apartment, my headache turned into a full migraine. I had to take some migraine meds (which always give me a rapid heartbeat and an upset stomach) and sit in a hot shower for 20 minutes while the meds kicked in. Then I spent the rest of the evening in my room with my head wrapped in a towel to keep most of the light and sound out. So much for a full day with my family.

I was feeling well enough to spend about 30 minutes with the boys and help get them in bed. But we did definitely wear them out today, as they went totally silent 15 minutes later.

I still feel a little disappointed about having to shut myself away for most of the evening, but I very much enjoyed my day off. I'm spending the rest of tonight relaxing to finish getting over the remnants of the migraine, so the destruction of toys, shoes, and DVD cases that were tossed all over our living room will wait until tomorrow.