Thinking Allowed: Nobody vomited

Now that Jakob is unable to join us on strenuous escapades he has kindly taken on the role of supporting husband and encouraged me to continue to provide that kind of lifestyle for myself and our children. He is and always has been my main partner in adventure so it is sad leaving him behind but on the other hand it is also sad to give up on escapades. Now that Zadie is no longer breastfeeding at night (still going strong during the day...) I figured it was finally time to separate from my small cute appendage and see how it went. Plus, after two backpacking trips with Aurora that both ended up with her vomiting for days I really wanted her to finally get to spend a night in the wild. All this to say that I took Aurora and Sophia into the Snowy mountains for an overnight backpacking trip. It wasn't anything huge, except for the mountains which were the highest in Australia (which really isn't saying much), but it was a great start. My hope was just to get the girls outdoors with their gear on their backs and pleased to be outdoors.

We had a grand time. While our lives were less cute without Tova Zadie and Jakob they were a lot more quiet and easy. Sophia complained a bit for the first few kilometers but then converted into positive mode proclaiming her love for backpacking every 10 minutes. Aurora, usually hesitant about carrying weight, didn't complain about her pack at all. Both kids were thrilled about our campsite by a creek and even more thrilled about getting to learn new card games. To make it more exciting I let the kids choose our meals. So for dinner we had ramen and for breakfast they got to try pop tarts for the first time. I felt victorious when Aurora didn't finish hers and both girls proclaimed it to be a poor breakfast. Everything about the trip was incredibly beautiful and relaxed. No one threw up. Not even a little. We couldn't have asked for a better weekend of backpacking.