Weekend Recap: Waterfalls & Gardens

Saturday: Hiking + Park

 

 

Another weekend, another hike. I know, I know, it's getting repetitive. What can I say? We love hiking! It's free (or really cheap - we paid $5 for parking this time), we love being outdoors, and we keep finding new trails to explore. This one was actually really close to our house, and we've known about it for awhile, but we just got around to actually hiking it. It's such a pretty trail, and Saturday morning was overcast, which always makes the green plants and trees pop even more. The park rangers claim that the trail is 1.5 miles, easy, shaded, and flat. By the time we got back to our car we'd walked about 5 miles (according to Joe's pedometer), and the trail narrowly wound along the side of a cliff. It definitely wasn't flat. It was shaded though, and that's kinda rare around here. Plus the scenery was beautiful. We'll definitely be back. In the evening, once it cooled down, we did a family walk to Starbucks and then to the park. Ezzy loved kicking the ball around and climbing the steps at the park. He slept well that night. Well, kinda. He slept 7 hours straight, but then woke up before 5, all bright and cheerful, and not at all sleepy, which led to this:

We went out for breakfast bright and early at 6 am and ordered one of everything on the menu. Not really, but we did get coffee cake, french toast (for Ez, but I ate some too), a breakfast burrito for me, and an omelet + tater tots for Joe. We've been wanting to try this spot for awhile, but it's always packed with a line of people waiting outside, and I'm not one to wait for my breakfast. It turns out there's no wait at all at 6 am (right when they open). Thanks, Ez! Afterward we all took a nice nap before we started the day for the second time.

Even though it was pretty hot, we decided to explore the gardens at the Huntington Library. Last time we were there, they hadn't finished the Chinese garden yet (not to mention Ezzy was still in my belly), so it was fun to check it out again. Ezzy loved pointing out the koi fish, and I got a kick out of the fact that he actually noticed the fish and pointed them out to us. That feels like a huge step toward actually knowing what's going on his head. He also loved plopping down on the grass to collect sticks and leaves. 

The Japanese garden had a ton of steps which Ez insisted on climbing. After about 20 steps (down and back up) we came to another (much shorter) flight of stairs and Ezzy turned around at the sight of them and buried his face in my legs. He's a trooper, but he had to draw the line somewhere. He went back in his stroller and was asleep in less than 30 minutes.

All of our walking this weekend set a new record for us: 50,000 steps (25 miles)! All this walking has also been great at wearing out a very energetic toddler. We've all been sleeping great at night (knock on wood)!