Hike to Mirror Lake

Sunday we decided to go for a hike near Mt Hood. Mirror lake is gorgeous and an easy hike for the kids. We packed up and drove out to the trail head. It was so busy, but we managed to find a parking spot and get started. G carried the small pack for all of 5 minutes before handing it off to M. He was fine with that though. G did a really good job and made it almost to the lake before hopping in the backpack. We looked at the lake and then decided to head on up to Tom, Dick and Harry mountain. I get a kick out of that name. Maybe I should look up the history of it.
C was amazing! He carried G the rest of the way to the lake and the last bit up to the mountain. Then he carried him all the way down! That's about 35# of kid plus the Kelty pack. Needless to say, he was a bit sore the next day, and still is.
M was great too. He hiked all 7 miles with (almost) no complaint and set a good pace for us up to the lake. Fortunately for us, the huckleberries were in bloom. G hiked as far as he did for huckleberries. He'd walk a while, then get a handful, walk awhile, get a handful and repeat. It was slow, but effective.
At the top of Tom, Dick and Harry we were rewarded with an amazing view of the lake, Mt. Hood and the surrounding area. There were clouds over Hood, which made it even cooler looking I think. M was impressed by the fact that we got to walk through some clouds on our way down. They were blowing up over the ridge into the valley where the lake is.

Dad and the boys at the summit

Mom and the boys at the summit. Yes, the sun is in our eyes--big time!

Aww, init cute? Sun still in eyes...

My two sweet peas. They had a lot of fun finding rocks and things to climb up onto.
A note about the shirts. Everyone picked out their own clothes entirely on their own. I realized when we all got downstairs and started loading up bags, that we had all picked out tie-dye. So, now here are pictures of our creations in use. It was funny too, because people kept commenting on the trail about how cute it was that we matched. I guess we all just really like our tie-dye!