One of our traditions

We're the outdoorsy types.  Before we had kids every Christmas my husband and I would do some sort of outdoor hiking adventure.  Mimi's first Christmas lacked this tradition due to visiting family and the overwhelming joy of my child's "first" iconic Christmas.  Her second lacked this tradition due to my knee surgery on Dec 16.  This year, having no visiting family, or desire to travel, we resurrected our hike tradition.

We had been wanting to go to Enchanted rock for awhile.  Our original intention was to camp there this holiday weekend, but the rain and cold temperatures scared us out of that adventure.  We did the next best thing and packed up our Subaru this morning right after breakfast and headed out to Llano Texas to Enchanted Rock State Natural Area.  It was a 2 hour drive from Austin, especially after having to stop midway to replace a windshield wiper blade (somewhat important on this rainy day) and for one emergent potty stop, which proved successful as Mimi has gone 2 days without diapers now (this enthusiasm I'll save for another post).

We got to the park and decided that Mimi, being quite the outdoor enthusiast herself, could most definitely hike Summit Trail, a 6/10 of a mile climb to um....the summit.  Despite being 2 1/2 years old, Mimi did really well.  Only a few tired tears on our climb down.  Understandably, as it was past naptime and the child climbed 6/10 of a mile up a mountain (well large rock) almost entirely unaided by her momma and poppa.

Here's some photos from the hike.  It was cold and rainy but we still had an AMAZING time.

On our way home we drove through Fredericksburg TX, which deserves and outing of its own for sure. Such a quaint town full of fun shops.  We stopped at an icecream parlor/bakery and had some sugar cookies and cocoa before headed home.

We had red clam sauce and pasta for dinner and put our darling girl to bed, who was too tired to indulge in a traditional Christmas movie :-( but there's always next year.  Now it's 1:30 am, so it's actually Christmas.  Laying out the gifts for Mimi (on the couch because we never got around to getting a tree), was one of the most special moments I've had.  Creating the magic of Christmas for my child was something I looked forward to before I even had kids.  My husband and I stood back and looked at the gifts we bought her and the ones for family and just felt so blessed at how much love there is for our little girl.  We're so lucky and so blessed, and I won't take that for granted!

I hope wherever you are, whomever you're with, you have a great holiday.  God bless you and I hope today is magical for you.

Goodnight.