Walk in the woods

Earlier this month we had a heavy hand in helping Daddy prep to lead a field trip for one of his courses. I recently let him (SIGH) buy an iPhone, and I have to admit it came in handy for this. All he had to do was navigate as I drove us around our local state park, and he watched our progress live on a Google map on his phone. Every so often he would shout "pull over there!", and thus we scouted out interesting sites for his kids to learn about rivers.

Of course we got out and hoofed it for awhile, too, enjoying the crisp fall air and the chucking of objects into the creek. Isaac and Daddy led:



Jakey stayed with me, slower so he could find the best "shield" (read: big leaf) to go with his "sword" (read: big stick), a game he made up entirely on his own:



At one point as it neared naptime Jacob lost his desire to walk at all and hitched a ride on our family pack mule.



The scene reminded me strongly of one two years ago, in the same forest but in a different state, and with a different brother hitching a ride on Daddy:



Flash forward to the present, and here's the composite picture, accompanied by the sound of my heart breaking at my three beautiful boys.