Meadowdale Beach

Eddie's calling in church is to work with the 16 - 17 year old Young Men as the Priest Quorum Advisor.  Part of his calling is to attend/assist with weekly activities.  The activity this past week was combined with the Young Women and was scheduled to be a hike down to Meadowdale Beach.  My calling used to be to work with the Young Women at church so we thought, how fun would it be for me and Samantha to tag along? 

So, I picked Eddie up from work, we raced home and got ready for the hike.  Now, I had been on this particular hike one time before.  I didn't recall it being too difficult or long, so I suggested we take the stroller, diaper bag, etc.

Again, we bundled up the baby in her Huskies hoodie :) and were on our way.  About halfway down to the beach, we realized that bringing the stroller and full diaper bag was not such a good idea.  Why?  Well, there were some pretty steep parts and after we got down them, we looked back and realized, "hey, we have to push the stroller back up that hill on the way back..."

Trail down to Meadowdale Beach...yeah, we took the stroller on this! 
Don't worry, I carried the baby down this one while Eddie maneuvered the stroller down :)

Anyway, we pressed on and made our way to the beach.  Samantha wasn't quite sure what to make of things.  We set her down in the sand and she kind of touched it and then pulled  back her hand like, "what was that I just touched?!" 

At first, I had to guide her hand down to the sand because she wasn't so sure...

And in the end...she still wasn't so sure what to make of the sand!

We looked out over the water, it was pretty close to sunset so it was beautiful.  We went to the water line and Samantha just stared at the water as it lapped up against the shoreline.  She was fascinated with that!

The view from the beach - just beautiful!

We only stayed at the beach for 15 minutes or so because we knew that the hike back was all uphill and would take some time.  Since it was getting late, we started our trek taking turns between carrying the baby and pushing the stroller (because it was impractical to think we could push the baby in the stroller up the hills...).

Samantha with Daddy

Mom and Samantha

What a beautiful little girl!!! 
(I'm totally impartial, you know :) - yeah, right!

Surprisingly, we made pretty good time on the way back.  Now that's not to say that it was a simple task, but we did it!!  About halfway up on the hike back, I think Samantha started to get bored, as if to say, "are we there yet?  Can't you two move any faster?"  She's so wonderful!

Another beautiful sunset in the Pacific Northwest!
(just ignore the sun glare in the photo :)