And a little child shall lead them.

After a great two days at Brandon and Mallory's, I returned to the Liston's to spend one more day in Washougal.  Megan and I had designed to wake up early on Monday morning for a girls' hike to the neighborhood waterfall.  Y'all have one of those, right?  That sweet little plan was made before we knew Travis had to go to a meeting in Portland early instead of working from home that day.  It was new plan hatching time.  We decided to bring the kids, and if we were going to be in the car, why not go big and drive the 45 minutes to Multnomah Falls-the serious, I'm not messin' around, don't leave Oregon without seeing me, falls.  We found everyone's shoes, bribed the kids and loaded the car.  Megan sold the excursion idea as we drove,"We'll get ice cream sandwiches and only hike to the bridge."  Fine by me.  I felt lucky to get a glimpse.

After some amazing parking place finding and child herding, Megan had us on our way.  There we were, on the bridge, looking up at one amazing sight.

Add caption

And then we just started meandering up the trail.  We stopped for a photo shoot

Susie, Miller, Ivy, Tommy, and me.

and reached a very informative sign that meant we had a decision to make.  There were 11 switchbacks on the trail to the top.  We had 5 kids under the age of 11 including a 3 month old baby.  Why would we keep walking?  Why indeed?  Megan asked if we wanted to turn back or keep going.  No one spoke up.  I didn't want to be the one to get in the way of greatness.  Ivy, the strong little 6 year old  said, "Let's keep going."   We deferred to her.  Every couple of switchbacks we checked. "What do you think, Ivy?"  "Keep going."  Megan started out carrying only the baby, Eliza Jane.  Soon she was carrying 2 1/2 year old Miller too.  I tried to help with Miller--nuthin' doin'.  I took the baby with the carrier.  It was a cinch, except now the stakes were high and I could not trip, could not stumble, could not falter.  Up, up Ivy went until that little pint sized cutie led us to the tip top of the falls.

We did it!

I hardly dared to put my camera over the railing to get the shot.
It was a long, long way down.

And I was proud--proud of the kids, proud of myself, and definitely proud of Megan.  I was even more proud of Megan when she ended up carrying Ivy on the way down and Miller too until she offered him a lot of fruit snacks if he could be strong and brave and walk with his big sister, Susie.

Definitely cooler now that we've been to the top.

Good job, team, and thanks Ivy, for helping us do something harder, but better.