Today I’m talking about Dads. Actually today I am going to talk about a particular dad – my husband Cam. I wish I had it together to post something around Father’s day, but I wasn’t that organized, so here is something now. And anyways, as parents we should be thanking, praising and loving each other throughout the entire year and not just on a certain day, right?
This past Father’s Day weekend, I was extremely sick. In fact I was so sick that I spent Saturday and Sunday hugging the toilet. The sickness stayed with me until the following Thursday and was really just plain horrible. Anyways this post is not about how sick I was, or about trying to take care of the girls the following week when all I wanted to do was rest. Nor is it about how the sickness trickled into every member of my family except, thank goodness, my oldest daughter. Lol. This post is about my husband, Cam, and his adventurous spirit.
On Father’s day, Cam had planned to go for a drive to Cochrane for Mckay’s ice cream with the girls during our youngest daughter’s afternoon nap. Both girls ended up falling asleep during the drive. While it is normal for our 1 year old to have an afternoon nap, it is not for my 2 ½ year old. Since they were still sleeping, and he was already headed that direction, he decided to just keep going until he reached the mountains. Without any specific plans, but the necessary gear packed “just in case”, he decided that he would hike up Grotto creek with the girls to Grotto Falls. This is not a difficult hike for adults but for a 2 ½ year old, 4 km on rocky terrain can be pretty tough.
Cam figured that our oldest would hike and our youngest would go in our MEC child carrier. This was not a ridiculous notion since our oldest has hiked this sort of distance recently. The one hang up was that she absolutely loves to do the EXACT same things as her friends and, since her best friend sister was going in the carrier, she wanted to be in it as well. As that was not possible Cam coaxed her along the trail for the first kilometre or so.
They encountered a few other young families on the trail, whose children happened to be riding in carriers, and she begged to go up and ride on top of her dad’s shoulders. So that was that, and up she went on top of Cam’s shoulders. My youngest in the backpack carrier and my oldest on his shoulders. As he went by other hikers and families, they looked at him like he was crazy. He partly thought it was a little crazy too, but he was really enjoying bonding outdoors with the girls, and they seemed to think it was pretty funny to be riding a Double Decker Daddy.
When they reached the falls, they met an older Father-Daughter duo (the daughter was in her 20’s). The man seemed to get a bit nostalgic and offered to take a picture for Cam. He said something along the lines of “Great work taking your kids up here yourself. It is great to expose them to the outdoors while they are young.” I whole heartedly agree with this statement which is why this post needed to be written. The girls are lucky to have you as their dad!!!
Please Note: This post was written by Annika Mang after hearing her husband recount the story.
