view from the top...

We recently had a very rare occurrence.  Well, rare for us anyway.  An entire Saturday…free!

No swim meets.  No games.  No agendas.  No schedules.  We were free to sleep in as late as we desired and do absolutely nothing if we wanted.  We were beyond thrilled at the mere thought of such freedom.

While I will completely admit that doing absolutely nothing may be desirable sometimes my one request was that we not sit around the house all day.  I'll be completely honest, while I love summer with its laid back routines and not having to get up early every day to get kids off to school, being at home all day can make me go a little stir crazy.

Chris and I talked it over and we each tossed out a few ideas.  None of them seemed quite right.  When Chris suggested going on a hike we both knew it was the perfect activity for our limitless day.

We packed up the kids and soon found ourselves at the summit of Mt. Diablo.

We got to the top and looked out over the horizon, seeing our usual stomping grounds far below us.  

It never ceases to amaze me how differently your perspective becomes when you take a step back and view your world from far away.   It is very humbling to think of how very small I am in this world.  

There was a swarm of dragonflies dipping and diving all around us.  We were able to avoid them, for the most part, although there were a few times that they came close to flying right into us.

Chris standing on the summit of Mt. Diablo.

Chris' picture...

My picture...

We explored Rock City and had fun scaling boulders…

Landon said, "check it out…I'm surfing!"

It was right about this time that, in "classic Stephanie" fashion, I set my camera bag down and it fell, tumbling and bouncing off every rock on the way down.

Yes, my camera was inside.  Thankfully, it was zipped in securely and nothing was broken.

There was no way I was leaving my camera behind so Landon hiked down with me to retrieve it.  We were hiking blind with Chris guiding us from above.  No worries though.  I got the camera back safe and sound. 

And that was our free day!  Actually, our day was so free that we were invited to a last minute BBQ that night and jumped at the chance to hang with some of our good friends…after a shower, of course.  Hiking makes you sweat like the dickens!