Hiking in the Snow

It's mid-January, the weather is beautiful but cold, what could be better than going hiking...in the snow?  NOTHING! (but warmth :-)  Shani is feeling rather large with this pregnancy (John rolls his eyes ans says she's the same as the last time) and she told John that she wants to try to be better with her sweet tooth and to exercise more. She has been exercising much less than when she was pregnant with Landon.  John's response, "Let's go for a hike."  We hiked a lot during Landon's pregnancy and as most of you know, we love this activity together so Shani agreed.  John then adds, "How about in the snow?"  Not exactly what Shani had in mind, but John did just get some new snow boots and we've been wanting to give them a try.  So within an hour of waking up on a Sunday, we were getting packed up to go hiking up near Donner Pass.  John found us a well-traveled snow-shoeing trail making it easier to hike in since we don't have snow shoes (yet!).  Like we said, it was a beautiful, sunny day, but very cold.  The car registered the outside temperature as 17 degrees when we got there.  We got our day pass, bundled up, threw Landon on John's back and started our hike at Castle Peak rd.

We passed quite a few snow-shoers on the trail as well as cross-country skiers.  We couldn't figure out if they thought were were crazy because we were hiking in just boots or because we were hiking with a toddler on our back.  Crazy or not it was fun.  Landon was very content in the pack and rather enjoyed passing all the people.  The way up was nice with very little wind.  Although we passed some people we also felt isolated which was nice.  We hiked for about 45 minutes before we decided to turn-around and head back down.  Down was a different story.  Although it wasn't tough to hike, the wind, although very slight, was much more noticeable.  This bothered Landon the most.  He was not having it being on John's back.  We think his poor exposed face was feeling very cold and his hands were a bit chilled too despite his mittens.  Landon wanted to be held which we think is so he could then look backwards so the wind wasn't bothering him as much.  Shani ended up holding him for a bit before getting tired and then John hiked the whole way back holding Landon in his arms.  Back at the beginning of the trail we ran into another outdoors couple with a toddler on his dad's back.  Turns out they are from Rocklin, their son is 2 weeks younger than Landon, and they are expecting another child  only a couple weeks after us.  Pretty crazy!

Once we were back in the car Landon was much much happier.  He was warm and could now eat the sushi he kept asking for.  Although we will probably make sure to have Landon's face covered more, this is something we definitely want to do again soon.  John loves his new boots, Shani loved getting out and exercising, and together we had fun doing something as a family.  Keep checking back because I'm sure we'll have more hiking adventures before this next baby arrives!

Shani and Landon in their "under-layers"- yes we put a diaper on Lando before we left

Daddy carrying Landon back down