Our "practice" hike

So, next week Jeremy is leaving for a WHOLE WEEK to go hiking with the scouts. He also had to leave this morning at 6:30 for work and won't be back until Friday night, so on top of that it feels like he won't be back for a lifetime! Granted yes, he will be home for the weekend (which is our 1Yr anniversary!), but it still seems like forever.

Kinda sad that I don't have more of a life to keep me busy when he's gone, but it's so boring. This is when I re-realize why I decided I couldn't ever marry someone in the military. I'm just not cut out for being alone.
But besides my anticipated loneliness, I'm excited for him to get to do this hike. It's a 50 miler over 5 days so, I've spent the last little while trying to find everything he's supposed to bring with him. Considering we had practically no camping stuff already, there was a lot of stuff to get. Who knew that strike-anywhere matches are practically impossible to find? I've seriously been to about 10 stores just to see and nowhere. Especially annoying because even the sales people have no idea where they would be located so I spend a lot of time following people around trying to remember where they MIGHT have seen them. Ah good times

Anyway, Jeremy was technically supposed to go on a few practice hikes with the scouts just to make sure they're shoes were broken in, their packs were working for them etc, but was never available to go.

So this Saturday before conference we took one ourselves. I'd been wanting to really get outdoors - more than the local parks and neighborhoods so I was excited.

The scouts were going to the same place but met at 8:00.

We got there about 10:00 (it's a little bit of a drive) so we only had about 1.5 hours before we had to head back, but Jeremy threw a bunch of stuff in his pack to get it to about the weight it was supposed to be and we went off.

It's a good thing we went because about 1 minute into the hike the buckle of the waist strap busted and he had to just tie them together.

And then by the end of the probably-less-then-2-mile hike he realized the boots he'd always used hiking in his youth weren't in as good of shape as he thought.

So, those 2 things are in the process of being remedied to hopefully bring him a pleasurable week full of hiking.