It's a cow. Or possibly a lion.

Brian doesn't get Saturday's off. He gets Wednesdays off. That means not much family time. Brian found himself with nothing pressing to do yesterday, so we decided to do something fun. We waited for Jacob to come home from school, then we went to pick up the other boys. When they asked me why I was checking them out, I told them they had a doctor's appointment, and they needed to catch up on a bunch of shots. Ethan was okay with it, but Eli was a little nervous. He kept asking questions about it. An hour later, Ethan finally figured out we weren't going to the doctor's office. It wasn't until we hit dirt road that they finally figured it out. We had driven all the way out to the hills by City Center. It's usually where we take the kids shooting. We weren't going shooting this time, though. There was a dirt road that went up between the hills that we had never gone on before. We parked the car just before the road headed into the hills, and started hiking it. Withing the first five minutes, Eli had found a small cave up in one of the hills. Brian stayed at the bottom with Emily while I hiked up with the kids. It was just big enough for the kids to climb in if they wanted, but it was full of spider webs and bat droppings. No thanks:)


Here's a cute one of Brian and Emily

Ethan hiked up to a higher point than anybody and wanted to show he was King of The Mountain. I really had to zoom in with the camera just to get his picture.

Here's where the title of this post comes into play.
When you are out in the country, where wild animals roam, there is a good possibility of finding bones. For most of the hike, Ethan was finding random bones here and there. I can deal with the occasional leg or jaw bone. What Eli found kinda grossed me out. We had hit a bend in the road. The boys had run up ahead around the bend out of sight of Brian and I. When we came around the bend, out boys were holding up and entire ribcage. We were still a good 50 ft. away, so we called to them and asked what it was. Ethan and Eli both answered at the same time that it was a cow. The Eli adds "Or possibly a lion." I couldn't stop laughing. He was dead serious. I have to say, the fur on the carcass was a golden brown; much like the color of a lion, so I could see where he would get that idea:) Anyway, Eli had found almost the entire carcass of a cow. There was even a big section that still had fur on it. They were in HEAVEN.

Gross, huh?
On to the more pleasant parts of the hike. Jacob found a great walking stick and wanted me to take a picture of him with it.

With everybody asking to get their pictures taken, Emily was not about to be left out. She walked right up to me and said "Cheese!" Of course, I had to take her picture.

Along the way, Eli found a fossil of a leaf in one of the rocks he was climbing. It's hard to see in the picture, but trust me, it's there.

Brian found the next cave. The hike up to that one just about killed me. I carried Emily the whole way up. That girl is dang heavy!





By the time we had reached the second cave, we had hiked about a mile. The hike was just a gradual incline, but after a mile, we had gotten pretty high. The view was very pretty, and since I am a picture taking fiend, I had to get pictures of my family with it. There are very few pictures of me, since I am usually behind the camera, so I figured I had better get some evidence that I was on this hike.


Also, while we were at the second cave, Ethan found a tiny lizard. My kids have really good eyes!

On the way back down the mountain, Eli found a ledge to climb up to.


All in all, it turned out to be a great day, even if I had to be a naughty mom and pull my kids out of school to do it. We got to spend some much needed family time together. I think I might just have to be a naughty mom again sometime:)