Chipinque Hike

Last Saturday we had our first big family hike at Chipinque, an enormous park in the mountains, full of miles and miles of different trails. It was an awesome way to spend a Saturday morning. We probably hiked for close to 3 hours and around 4 miles and the kids all did awesome. Josh walked almost the whole way by himself. We all enjoyed being out in nature and away from the noise of the city. We're looking forward to doing it again and frequently!

 Seth getting his workout on before the hike. Monterrey has a lot of these random workout machines in their parks. 

 Some of our trail was like this, other parts were wide and flat

 Cool rock steps

 The wild life was super curious, unafraid and friendly; you could tell that they were used to humans feeding them. 

 Sam found this pine cone early on and it now sits on their bookshelf. All the boys like smelling it.

 I lot of the hike I felt like we were on the Road to Hana in Hawaii...it was so similar. Check on the enormous plant on the right! 

 Seth found the coolest hiking stick

 Monterrey has some seriously beautiful butterflies.

I wish I would have gotten a picture of it, but a butterfly landed on Josh's head! 

Two butterflies on one flower

Let's all touch the cactus and see if it pokes me too...(boys!!!)

 Speaking of friendly animals, this guy sauntered right up to the kids feet 

 It's the equivalent of a Mexican raccoon called a Coati

 Well that was fun

 New butterfly species

 Snacks break! A blue bird sat on the branch above the boys' head the whole time hoping to scavenge some food. 

 Much of the hike had this gorgeous slate mountain walls on one side

We hiked up to an old general's summer home; it was really neat! 

 It was fun to picture living up at the top of the mountain like that! I bet the place was gorgeous. 

 Beautiful mountain tops all around us (Seth and Sam)

 He's so darn cute

 If you notice, Seth looks a little teary in this picture. Well, about two hours into our hike, Ben and I decided we'd like a little peace and quiet from the twins' incessant talking and questioning, so we decided to do 5 minutes of pure silence. We just wanted to hear the quiet of the mountains! Well, Seth and Sam didn't take kindly to that...in fact, they were down right upset! This is Ben trying to explain to Seth our reasoning. 

I love this picture so much. The last part of the hike the boys pretended to hunt the whole time. It was pretty cute.