Riding the Hiawatha

 Last Sunday we did a family bike ride and played at the beach for a few minutes

Two hummingbirds!

Kim and the kids had a play date at the splash park earlier in the week

I love having super heroes around the house

Kim and the kids also had a Silverwood day this week

And got YUUUGE ice cream cones

Mason did get ice cream even though it was not warranted by his behavior that day

On Thursday we scratched off a big item from our summer bucket list: we rode the Hiawatha trail!

The Route of the Hiawatha is a bike trail that is 15 miles long with 10 train tunnels and 7 trestle bridges. The trail is the former location of the Milwaukee Railroad line that was abandoned in 1980 for financial reasons.  

The tunnels were super dark and some of them were wet with water dripping from above. This first tunnel was just under 1.7 miles long!

This waterfall is at the end of the first and really long tunnel

Even with smoke from forest fires the views were really beautiful

We saw this old bird's nest by an interpretive sign

Stopping for lunch

The bridges were very impressive

The tunnels were also really neat

We knew someone else who was riding at the same time as us so we had someone to take pictures for us

The boys like playing on these rail road ties

And of course the licorice breaks were very welcome

Lyza was a champ!

And so was Nixon

The bridges were really impressive

Lyza had her book for the stops

Photo courtesy of Nixon

Good jumping

I love Henry's expression

On the shuttle ride home the driver stopped for us to look at a moose in the distance (very far distance)

Here is a video of our trip

Batman practicing his swing

Nixon likes to fall asleep in our bed and we have to transport him to his bed at the end of the night. Nixon is a very sound sleeper and it is often difficult to get him back to his bed. Here is a video taking him to his bed. 

I got to build a xylophone with the kids

For breakfast yesterday Kim made acai bowls and chocolate zucchini muffins. Delicious!

All of these flowers came from our yard/garden

Nixon and Mason helped me trim some of our pine trees yesterday. They were both wearing their pajamas

We took the kids to the park last night. Of course our boys are the ones standing on this thing

What a monkey

Have a great week!