A Pooped Coop

Cooper got a rare treat today – a long long LONG walk in the woods near our house. We haven’t done this in a while, mostly because I am not a fan of loading him in my car since it means I have to put him in the front seat and I usually like to keep my car spotless so I don’t like his hair & dirt all over the place.

Back before kids, Cooper & I would walk in the woods almost daily – and we met Cathy who has two dogs. I’ve been lucky to meet up with her the past couple of times I have attempted the woods and it’s been fun to catch up. I remember walking with her near the end of my pregnancy with Mallory and seeing deer run across our path. She convinced me it was a good sign that I would have the baby that day (I didn’t). I miss the long aimless walks we used to take – it certainly isn’t the same with Mallory saying “Um, excuse me Mom. I need to tell you a question. I am gonna bring this nature home to my daddy” every 5 minutes.

I was hoping to get pictures with some pretty leaves so off we went to the woods, with my big camera and Mallory’s little camera, and plans to meet up with Cathy. I put Carson in the big backpack carrier and crossed my fingers that we’d actually get to do a little bit of walking.

Amazingly, Mallory was great. We ended up walking for almost 90 minutes (don’t get all excited and think I walked like five miles in that 90 minutes – it was really only probably 1.5 miles at Mallory’s MPH).

Here are my favorite pictures of the day – Cooper going all out and Cooper not moving when we got home. He got an anti-inflammatory for dessert tonight and is now snoring (loudly) at my feet.

But since the purpose of our walk wasn’t only to tire the dog out – here are the pictures we took.

I just love this girl!!

She wanted to take a picture of these “leafses” she placed on this log:

This is the shot she got:

Near the end of our walk, she made us stop so she could take a picture of a “wock” (rock).

Here is Mallory’s rock:

Carson was a rock star during our woodland photography adventure – he just hung out on my back, occasionally pulling my hair and babbling but mostly just laughing at his goofy sister.