The girls' first backpacking trip

When my husband was backpacking Kesugi Ridge I couldn't help myself, I had to try taking my girls backpacking. This last photo shows how I carried everything, I tried packing as lightly as I could so that there wasn't excess weight. My big girls and I sleep in sleeping bags and my baby girl sleeps in a winter suit. My 4 year old has a Marmot Trestle bag that comes in a great compression sac but my 3 year old just has a Kelty Woobie. I didn't have time to go get a extra compression sac so I stuck hers in my Marmot sleeping bag sac then stuck my bag in the Osprey Daylite pack. {I hope that all makes sense...} The orange compression sac has our sweatshirts, my baby's winter suit, and spare clothes. We mainly just brought an extra base layer, socks and rain gear for everyone. Before this trip I bought new hiking boots, I ended up going with Solomon boots with Gore-tex, they were amazing. My feet were bone dry the entire time. My older girls have Keen hiking boots that kept them somewhat dry but not completely. My baby was wearing Mymayu rain boots. These are seriously some of my favorite kid shoes I have ever discovered!  Absolutely perfect for little walkers! We ended up sleeping in a Marmot 3p tent and it was plenty big for the 4 of us and our 3 dogs. I was very pleasantly surprised!
The first time we tried taking the family back packing I carried our baby in the Osprey Poco Plus along with food and some gear then my husband carried the rest. I have to saw, this method, everything in a 65L bag on my back and baby on my front, was much easier!

If any of you are hesitant to take your little ones on a backpacking trip I highly suggest you give it a try. I was taking the girls alone so we only hiked out 1.5 miles but honestly that was just perfect for us, especially for the first time out. We hope to one day take them on a multi-day long backpacking trip but for now, with little bitties, this was perfect. My big girls each wore a back pack but it was mainly just for training. They didn't really carry much. In each of their packs was a water bottle, little snack, and a toy.

I can't even really put into words how happy and excited I was to take them backpacking. There are so many things that I long for about them getting older, the awesome adventures, them carrying their own packs full of gear, etc. but this trip showed me just how much we can accomplish how, how amazing they are now, how we don't, even for a second, have to stop adventuring and wait for them to get older. These girls are truly amazing and I feel so intensely grateful to get to spend this amazing life with them.