Do outdoor adventures with your family ever feel like this picture?  If so, you are so not alone.  These sort of pictures are not the ones that usually show up on social media.  In fact, scenes like this are generally not even photographed.  This one happened to be captured by my husband on a picnic lunch at Julian Price Memorial Park. After a stressful week at work and getting our new water distiller system installed, we most definitely needed a break. We’d just set up camp, and were grabbing a bite to eat before setting off on a family hike.  Unbeknownst to the Crag-Daddy, Big C and I had been arguing about food (“Hiking bears are not for lunch.  You have to be a happy hiker to get them.”)

So when Steve sat down on the bench and said, “Smile, everyone!” Big C whipped his head around with a snarky remark and got an eye-roll from me, while Baby Z was of course oblivious to everything but my water bottle.  And so it goes.

Certainly not meltdown status by any means (but I had a hard time finding a representative picture of an ACTUAL meltdown.)  But it does bring up a good point – not all outdoor moments with your family are good ones.  Sometimes they are pretty crappy.  And that’s okay too.

If I wanted to I’m sure I could pontificate more about the life lessons that can be gleaned from temper tantrums at the crag and meltdowns at the farthest point on the trail away from the car.  But I’ll save that for another post.  Today I just felt like showing an authentic glimpse of what our family sometimes looks like “behind-the-scenes” in the Great Outdoors.  And to encourage you to get out anyway, because the good moments more than make up for the bad ones.  (And ALL of the memories will make for good stories later!)

Anyone else been there, done that? Feel free to share a story (or a pic!)