In Pursuit of a Hike

I am so happy to be writing this post. I'm happy because I've been sitting on several blog posts that I've wanted to finish but have been just so incredibly busy with end of school events for both the boys and me. I'm especially happy to be writing this post in particular because it means that we are finally all done with the school year. My classroom is packed up and cleaned out. Lex and Eli finished 1st grade and kindergarten respectively. And we are ready to hit summer hard.  I've been too busy to write, but we haven't been too busy to hike. We've actually been to some really cool places. We recently revisited  Gans Creek Trails , a part of  Rock Bridge State Park .  We've hiked here several times before. We went on a winter hike here in 2016 and also went in at a different trail head and had an amazing hike in which we completed one of the loops. We've completed several of the loops on this trail system and always love the views.  So in

I'm not going to lie. I have thoroughly enjoyed the Missouri winter we've had for the past 2 years. I have barely broken out my winter coat and we've enjoyed year round hiking. Forecasts of bad winter weather are usually grossly overrated and underwhelming in reality here in Central Missouri. I'll take the temperate weather and all the outdoor activities that come with it. So back in February, we brought home our new puppy, Kylo. When he threw up the entire way to our home that first day, we just assumed he had overeaten, was scared, or a combination of the two. We soon learned however that Kylo is just one of those puppies that gets car sick. Anytime we drive more than 2 minutes. Poor thing. The vet says that maybe he will outgrow it and maybe he won't. We were most bummed by this development because we desperately wanted to be able to take Kylo hiking with us. The very weekend after we brought him home, before we realized the extend of his car sickness, we d