The Ball's Went Over the Mountain

Remember the song about the bear going over the mountain? I loved it when I was a kid! Maybe it was because my family lived at the base of Maple Mountain and my dad owned a great pair of binoculars. There would be many days where I would use his binoculars to look up at that mountain to determine if I could see anything up close! Never really did see much but a bunch of bushes and trees, but I sort of felt like that bear...

Fast forward about 25 years and here I am with more great mountains around me. (Technically they're called foothills but I still consider them mountains.) The Boise foothills are gorgeous - for about 4 weeks of the year when they've been washed with spring rain and have had ample amounts of May sunshine they are a beautiful sight to behold. I'm sure my kids are sick to death of me saying,
"Just look at those foothills! They're so green!"
And,
"Someday we're going to climb up to the top of that mountain and see what's up there!"
Or,
"Just look at how the sun is hitting those hills. Wow."

Yeah, I'm sort of weird like that.

Bill has been telling me for awhile that he would accompany me up to the top. We just never had a good 4 hours to do it - you know, scout camping trips, fishing trips, and more scout camping trips taking place on a Friday night and Saturday morning. Grrr. This "bear" wasn't going over any mountains!

However, last Monday we found some time to actually accomplish this highly anticipated hike. Bill was off for the fourth of July vacation so we gently coerced the kids to join us. Wow. What a great morning of hiking, talking, amazing views, and good old family time. Now we know what's on the other side of that mountain - excellent views of the other side! Hah! That bear was right.

There's my "mountain" - to the right of Kourtni's head is where we were headed.

Bright and early on July 5, 2010

Notice how Kourtni is no where in sight - that's because she BOOKED it up that trail! Yeah, I thought for sure she was cougar bait! Yikes.

Once we caught up to Kourt (really the cows scared her and slowed her down) we tried to pick out the landmarks of Boise.

Had to go through a bit of forest to get to the top - saw lots of cattle. Weird but good for us since cougars might like beef more than human...

We made it to the top in about 2 1/2 hours. It was FREEZING up there and extremely windy. We took several pictures and kept moving to keep warm.

Pretty wildflowers on the way.

He's such a good sport to hike all that way! Say it with me, "Awwww..."

"This" is what's on the other side of my mountain! Isn't it gorgeous? Totally worth the hike.
And, yes, Griffy made it. He kept up the entire way - pretty good for a 13 year old dog!

Girls in the back singing Dragon Tales songs... they got sort of loopy on the way down.

Bill and Pate tried the rope swing at the end...

Good thing he didn't land in a cactus...

Griffy's not as young as he used to be - he gets by with a little help from his friends. Hah.

Sweet relief - now let's go get some pizza!

And that's what happened when the Ball's went over the mountain.