NSJ

Grandpa Lew and I took Niko on his first overnight hiking trip this weekend. I wanted a hike which got us deep enough into the wilderness to be a real hike, but not one that would make him hate hiking from the first trip. I settled on a CT section of the Appalachian trail (specifically between CT 41 & CT 112) with a five mile hike in and out and enough elevation change to be interesting, but not kill him on his first hiking trip. There were three things he seemed most excited about going into the trip:

1. Carrying his own pack
2. Flashlights
3. The tent

The three things he ended up *actually* being excited about on the trip were:

1. Throwing rocks off cliffs
2. Flashlights
3. The tent

The “carrying his own pack” thing got old pretty quick.

We got hit by a rain storm early Sunday morning so the hike out was a bit of a soggy five mile forced march but he seemed mostly unfazed by the hardship.

On a related note I got a new tent for the trip and the Nemo Losi 3 person tent is hands down the most amazing tent I’ve used. I can’t recommend it enough.

At the company picnic I managed to catch Niko’s “waiting dance” on camera. Until this point it had not yet been recorded.

Niko also proved to be a very serious spiderman, a giddy horse rider, and a big fan of water bounce like-like blow up thingies. And we rode a chairlift. Which is very odd without skis. Three hours and nine blue cupcakes later, he crashed the second he hit the car seat.

Sometimes I ask him to read the book to me.

Nick’s class at the Nature Center put on a show.

My sister is posting to Buzz, which in itself is news. But the picture is damn cute as well.

http://www.google.com/buzz/janljohnston/Qp178LrRVJe/Brothers

Not sure how much longer I’ll be able to hold him like this, but while I can…

This week Niko declared, “I can swim, all…by…myself.” And sure enough, he could.

Diving board jumping with some help from a bubble, and auntie Meg.

We got to climb on the Darien fire department fire trucks this weekend. Apparently this excitement was so exausting that when I took the boy to dinner, he fell asleep in the booth. We also got new neighbors with a little girl Niko’s age. Good for the boy, good for us, dancing all around. Plus we did some wall jumping. Because you know, that is what they are for. Jumping.