Dear Marshall,
There is a page in our 2012 Christmas photo album with pictures taken during one of our hikes. It might even have been our very first hike together. I wrote something about that day as a draft but never published it. It seems a shame to simply delete it, so I’m going to finish it up and post it to the date of our hike. That way I’ll be able to include it with the year-end photo album that I’m working on now. Here goes.
While Livia was napping, I took Marshall for a walk in the woods with me. We hiked to the top of a rocky hill that overlooks a pond. The terrain was rough. There were so many rocks to fall on, not to mention a cliff to fall off of. Marshall handled the hike well, taking it slow, and allowing me to hold his hand, but I don’t think we’ll go back to the top again until he’s older.
He won’t mind, though. Neither the hike up the hill nor the view from the top seemed to thrill him. What he liked were the stream with its little wooden bridges and the pond at the base of the hill. The pond was surrounded by tall grass. The grass made him think of one of his books, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. He kept saying “swishy swashy!” He wanted to know where the cave was (because if there’s a bear, it must live in a cave, right?), but when I asked him if he wanted to go on a bear hunt, he said “No!” Smart kid!
When we got home, my husband was doing some minor repairs on the truck. Marshall and I sat in the truck bed and kept him company. I gave Marshall my camera, which was a slightly crazy thing to do, given that it’s so new and expensive. He was careful, though, and he took some surprisingly good photographs. He actually picked interesting subjects and centered them in the pictures. I posted the best of the photos on Facebook and changed his occupation to “Photographer.”
So there you have it, another glimpse into our lives in 2012. It was a good year!
Love,
Mom