Little Mashel Falls

Today for church we talked about the Good Samaritan and who our neighbors really are. We also talked about love, equality, and what our motivation is for such things. This lead into a great talk about MLK and the wonderful life that he had. The girls are out of school tomorrow and I really want to make a conscious effort to help them realize why they are out... what we are celebrating.... and how cool it is!
We finished up our church with a hike... cuz.. well, maybe we'd see someone beat up and help them out?.. no, just cuz we like to hike. :-)
We went to Little Mashel Falls out of Eatonville. The adventure started with a walk across a train trestle over a river. I know I'll get some flack from the Grandma's on that one but Scott assured me that trains don't use those tracks very often. And we gave the "don't ever do this without mommy or daddy" speech repeatedly and we even felt the rails a time or two, so we tried to cover our bases.... (who am I kidding... I'll still get flack!)
Anyhoo.... after the train trestle, we hiked in the mud/ice/woods for a bit and were off the beaten path. I really don't worry about that too much when we are with Scott- the man is a human GPS but today, I saw cougar tracks.. yes, I know, my life as a tracker has been hidden from most of you but I am an expert since I have had a Northwest Trek membership for 3 years and I know cougar/mtn lion/ big kitty tracks when I see them. We were in this wooded area, full of deer poop- a prime hunting ground if you ask me ( for the cougar that is), and I mentioned it to Scott and "encouraged" him to find us a way out of this area.... ok, so the conversation kind of went "For the love of God man our children are going to be eaten!"..... ok, I wasn't that paranoid, but we did move briskly and found a trail much to my relief!
Once on the trail, we made it to the Little Falls. It was beautiful! There was about 2 inches of ice over everything! The girls were troupers! They hiked and hiked and loved it! It was great weather..... we actually even saw the sun and got a little vitamin D therapy! On the way back to the car, we stopped by a lake that was frozen over and took turns throwing things in. It was so much fun! I love the picture of Scott and the girls at that stop! I'm proud to report that there were no cougar sitings, just tracks, no one fell into the ice, and a train did not chase us down like in the movies. ( the girls referenced the Aristocats as I was thinking more along the lines of Stand by Me... but it's all really the same) :-).... all said and done, it was a great day!