hiking timp cave...

For a long time I have been wanting to hike Timp Cave with the kids and this year we felt like they were finally old enough, so we decided to go for it while we were camping at Silver Lake over the 24th.

I was a little worried that it would be too hot and the kids would wine the entire time since it is a pretty steep hike to do in the middle of the summer heat, but they were all so good and the weather turned out to be beautiful! The boys were little troopers, even Cooper was so good...I am still trying to figure out why I was the one who ended up carrying Cooper on my back the entire hike though. All of these people kept looking at me like I was crazy but it really wasn't too bad and he even took a little snooze on the way down the mountain.

When we finally got to the cave we were all exhausted and had a little time to rest before our tour started. As soon as we entered the cave Dawson started freaking out and was so scared, it was super dark in there and he thought there would be rattlesnakes in the cave since there were signs saying "watch out for snakes" everywhere on the hike.

Our sweet tour guide explained that snakes could never live in the cave because it was way too cold and he let Dawson and Braxton be his little helpers at the front of the line. After the mini-meltdown he felt a lot better and the boys LOVED the cave and could not stop asking questions, they were so fascinated by everything.

It was so fun and something we would definitely do again! After the hike we went back up the canyon further to our sweet campsite where Braxton and Dawson cooled off as they played in their underwear in the river and put on a little dance for us...hillarious!

Later that night our good friends the Scott's came up and stayed the night with us. We always have so much fun with them and this time was no exception. Jen and I are already planning Cooper and Bailee's wedding so hopefully there will be plenty more camping trips to come :)