Baby sets pace for hike

Today we took a hike up Kamiak Butte. Oli carried Layden up the steepest part, the first 1/2 mile or so. Then we stopped and had lunch while enjoying the view of the Palouse. Though it was a bit overcast and hazy. Then Layden walked the majority of the last 3 miles on his own. The pace wasn't fast but we had fun. Layden thought it was great. He was so proud of himself when he would climb a particularly big rock and would turn to make sure that we had seen. He stopped every so often to just touch something on the side of the trail. Lightly touch a fallen branch or leaf. Sometimes he ripped off a leaf but that wasn't too often. Amazingly he did a pretty good job of staying on the trail he only wandered off a couple of times. He seems to really like birds and makes hand motions like he is trying to call them over. Needless to say, they don't come. One of Oli's coworkers has a fairly friendly cockatoo so maybe sometime he will get to meet it. He really liked the downhill bits. He could get going so fast. Unfortunately he would get going fast enough that he was very good about walking a straight path. So for some bits we had to carry him to keeping from falling down a rather steep slope. He nose dived a few times but just picked himself up and got going down hill again, giggling madly. By the end of the day he was quite tired and he passed out in the car seat on the way home from the international food store in Pullman.