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Note to reader: If my posts ever prove boring, just read the comments instead. In fact, it would be great if you could get an RSS feed on the comments, not my posts! I am fortunate to have a cast of nutty readers who follow my blog daily AND comment frequently.

Sammy and I got our new hiking boots from Campmor yesterday! It was time to get Sammy bigger hiking shoes and I need a pair of light hikers so I could stop wearing old beat-up sneakers. When Sammy opened his box from Merrell, I almost cried (my hiking buddies will understand this!). My Columbia hikers feel good, and Sammy’s fit fine even if they’re a bit big. They don’t make actual hiking shoes for toddlers, but these will work out great and he can grow into them. (They’re a size 10! His shoe size is actually an 8/9 so I guess we’re not too far off.) As soon as he put them on, he went down the hallway to the mirror and started modeling – putting his hands in his pockets and strutting around! So I decided to see just how much direction he’d be interested in taking. We went outside and he put his foot up on a rock, sat on the deck steps with his legs crossed and tapped his foot (his own idea!), leaned on a palm tree…even learned to cross his arms thanks to Gramma. Tita Bear has long wanted Sammy to model but Gucci doesn’t do much with toddler hikers. She asked if Sam takes direction well and I thought he did but didn’t know for sure. This 15 minute session went well and he is a natural performer. I take a lot of pictures and he thoroughly enjoys seeing himself on the computer when I upload them. Who knows – maybe we’ll dabble in a little modeling if the opportunity comes our way. So the picture above is me “modeling” with Sam 🙂

We both wore them out to a celebratory dinner with my mom (Gramma) at Zia’s in Kailua. We were celebrating a new job for me – designing a website for a startup artisan baker in Honolulu! How cool is that?! I even made a banner graphic with pictures of my bread 🙂 I’ll post the link when it’s out of testing.

Today I think we’re going on a field trip to an Army surplus store to find me combat boots for this crazy SWAMP ROMP. Apparently they have a good stockpile of new and used boots at a reasonable cost. Should be interesting! I am also really excited to get a new child carrier pack for Sam (and me) – a Kelty Adventure – from a seller on Craig’s list who actually lives in Kailua. It’s the exact pack we were looking for (he has grown out of the one we bought when he was 5 months old) and is 1/3 the price of buying new. (Not to mention there are NO gear stores here so we can’t go test anything – almost everything gear related is mail-order. Seems like a business opportunity, don’t it?) Sammy will even have stirrups to rest his feet while riding! The pack has good volume (1500ci) and makes use of the under-child area for storage (which most don’t because the manufacturer didn’t anticipate that one would hike without one’s sherpa-spouse!). We have a hike on Sunday with the Sierra Club up to the Ko’olau crest (the Kuli’ou’ou Ridge trail). Should be a good hike – in all my research I found no evidence of ropes, narrowness or other treachery and even some shade (and a good incline for me!). I’ll post a trail report when we get back…