WEEKEND EXPLOITS || ON THE PIC OF PARADIS

can you tell I love taking mondays off from the blogosphere? because I do. it gives me a whole day to catch up with all of the domestic things I didn't accomplish over the weekend. especially when saturdays are spent out-of-doors climbing all over a mountainous rain forest, which was the case with this last saturday. mitch and I love to hike. we like to think that we'll be those cool parents that opt to take their kids out of school early on fridays for some hiking/camping adventures. unless you're a truant officer, in which case I'm totally joking and we would never be that irresponsible.

anyway, the island doesn't have an abundance of trails, but the ones it does have range on the more difficult side. or at least, that's what I was thinking when climbing (on all fours, at times) up pic paradis--a gorgeous 2.5-hour hike that goes pretty much straight up. the starting point is this adorable grown-up tree house that encompasses a couple of restaurants, a zip-line, a pool area worth coveting, and the only manicured lawn we've seen since arriving here in january. but the trail itself is kept almost completely wild. a vast comparison to the wide and sometimes paved trails of waterton and banff. with the sharp rocks and piles upon piles of leaves, my keens were rendered insufficient footwear. however, this didn't detract from the breathtaking view of miles and miles of rocky rain forest spread out before us. I seriously felt like we were on top of the world. which, in reality, we sort of were. our 40-square-kilometer world. we also came across dozens of wild monkeys. though, I am pretty positive they were more frightened of us than we were of them. it was almost impossible to snap a decent photo of them (via iphone) as they ran as fast as their little monkey legs could carry them away from our leaf-crunching feet. 

overall, it was such a great little morning expedition followed by an afternoon of nursing torn up feet and watching the the final okc game. did I mention those rocks were sharp? 

 I'll have to revisit for brunch.

monkey sighting.

love his mustard yellow gullet.

a cauldron full of lily pads. would you call that a cauldron?

I hope all of you were able to get outside and enjoy some sun this past weekend. can you even believe that it is june already? I can't. I feel as though christmas was just yesterday! life flies by so fast. have a wonderful tuesday, everyone!

love, arielle