the. hike. the. end.

after hiking nearly 8 miles from 1pm-4:30...

[anna told me to stand on a tree stump. this is what you get.]
coming home, brewing a mug of dark roast...

helping anna make onion soup for the family...

[anna, taking a picture of me with casey's camera; explains this picture, yes?]

toasting a tortilla with cheese on it, black beans, seasoned rice, and salsa on it for myself...

[anna; casey the camera-and-weather friend, and ben:]

watching biggest loser and on commercials, merlin...

yes. this is my laptop's background right now. ♥ God is so amazing....

here i am.
i'm going to be feeling those miles tomorrow. we all are.

[when casey saw me going for this shot, he blinked at me and said "i never even thought of getting one like that." yeah...to have a camera geek tell me that made me feel cocky. heh. so i shrugged and gave him an i'm brilliant, yeah? yeah. face. everyone laughed and he just shook his head:]

....the good thing? i had my camera batteries charged last night in prep for today. especially good.
....the bad thing, i'm loading pictures, almost done selecting the more high-pointed, unique ones for this post, and it's 11:37pm....but if feels like it's 1:30am. dang. it.

that's right. stand in wonder.

[we spotted snow at the edge of a pond thing. i randomly told casey to go take a close-up of it. he did. we laughed:]
i took 288 pictures today on that 4 hour hike.

crazy, yes?

breaking for a breather, clif bars, granola bars, and water....and almonds ben brought in a zippie. fun stuff!

crazy.
that's me.

[i screamed the whole time ben had the audacity to walk over me. it was around 5-6 feet down...and i got scrapes everywhere when i went back to feet-connected-to-ground mode. heh. i love climbing trees, though.]

the bench we found at about the halfway point sat facing this sign.

♥

we found some of the only snow left in the county. hehe. casey took a picture of anna, ben and i standing in it, doing faces. i'll have to save it when he posts it sometime...

i ♥ sisters.

needless to say, we'll be trying the easier ones someday. but i have to admit, going the nearly-8 miles and coming home to tell about it, makes you feel kinda like some sort of a beast. ;)
relatively.... :)
whoa. 12:36am. goodnight!

spring has returned. 
the earth is like a child that knows poems.
[rainer maria rilke]