2 hours later....

I have a baby-shaped sweat mark on the back of my shirt.

Seriously.

We went for a walk this morning, and I was feeling all ambitious and ready for a bit of an adventure, so I took the kids for a walk around a nearby neighborhood, planning for just a mile or two. I'd looked at the layout of the neighborhood on Google Maps before, but I didn't bring a map with me. Which turned out to make for a very .... interesting walk.

An hour into it, I had no idea where I was (silly me didn't think to use the sun as a compass), but I hoped I was coming closer to a main road, when I suddenly realized that the road ahead was not the one I was expecting it to be. No, looking at the map later, I discovered that I was about half a mile or so off my mark. And unfortunately, my path had led me down a fairly steep hill, and of course, it would be impossible to get back to our original destination without going back up the hill.

In the end, our little excursion was 2.6 miles and lasted a full two hours....with one baby on my back and two in the stroller. Although, I did make Melinda walk when we were going uphill, because it was just too hard to push her extra weight, otherwise. Google Maps thinks our route should have taken me 51 minutes. Do you think I can justify taking twice the amount of time with the fact that I was transporting over 90 pounds of children (plus a stroller) on top of my own out-of-shape self?

Still - it was a lovely morning outside. Not too hot, not too cold. We saw a pretty spotted butterfly, a bunch of big mushrooms, acorns, a chipmunk, a friendly little dog, and "helicopter" seeds from a maple tree. It was a good morning to be outside.

But next time? I think I'm taking a map with me. Facing the giant hill after already walking for an hour was a little too much like self-imposed torture.