Happy Mother's Day and the Angry Hike

Mother's Day...Ahhhh...The day that Mom gets to choose the activities and be spoiled. Is that what happens at your house? Not at mine! Yes, I got to choose the activities, but each of them seemed to lead to grumpiness in my boys. I think that it is payback for all of the times that I was grumpy with my Mom! I do believe that I remember Mom saying, "You just wait - I hope that you have kids that behave the way you do!" Well, Mom, your wish came true (at least this afternoon!). I make it sound horrible, but it was actually quite a nice day.

I started out the day singing at church and wearing a new dress. Yes, you read that correctly - a dress. The last time I was in a dress might have been 2 years ago for Karis and Nick's wedding. The fun connection with that is that I bought the dress yesterday while shopping with Nancy and Karis!

Here is a picture of me in my new dress. The photo is also a double for my 5-month post surgery picture!

It was then time for me to pick where to go or what to have for lunch. I decided upon PF Chang's since we haven't been there for a couple of years. It was absolutely delicious! I thoroughly enjoyed the Kung Pao Chicken and the Mongolian Beef. We tried spare ribs and a type of quesidilla for the boys. Ethan was too frustrated by the chopsticks (he refused to use the "trainer" chopsticks since he felt that he should master the real ones) to really eat. Boy guy, he didn't really like anything. We really expected E to like the food because he loves Sawatdee. We did NOT expect Alexander to eat as much as he did! He devoured 3 crab wontons, a quesidilla, and liked the Mongolian beef. No one liked the spare ribs. I didn't have enough room to try them out, so maybe when we eat the leftovers tomorrow.

We then headed to Moir Park and the trail along 9 mile creek.

It was so nice to see the beautiful spring flowers of trilium, columbine, violets, wild strawberries, and much more. Here are some of my pictures of the flowers:




We had a grand time tossing sticks into the creek and watching them as far as we could or until they were blocked by other debris or rocks. We tossed from the walkway and watched them travel down the creek or we tossed from the different bridges along the trail:






The enthusiasm for watching the sticks and walking quickly dissipated when we reached approximately 2+miles into the hike. It was at that point the we started to hike out of the ravine and back up into the streets of Bloomington. The full revolt started half way up the hill when A cried out that this was an endless trail and that his legs were about to collapse. At that point, both of them cried mutiny and sat down in the wood chips:

I, too, was tired and thirsty (we didn't carry sufficient water with us), so I decided to head back to the car to "rescue" my poor boys. The walk back through the city streets were shorter than heading back through the walkway in the park. The 2 miles back to the car was long and hot. When I got to the car, I realized all of our crankiness - it was 91 degrees!!! No wonder everyone got tired and grumpy.

After we arrived home, I hopped into the shower and all of the grumpiness and resentful feelings towards the boys' grumpiness was washed away. It was a great day full of hiking, flowers, and time with my boys. All things that I love!