We did our first hike in the Pacific Palisades, which is near Malibu. We drove up and finally got our bearings (after looking and re-looking at the map a million times) before setting out for a very simple 1.5 mile hike to the waterfall.

The hike took us through a canyon, duh, so we spent the time talking to Delaney about what canyons are and going on a hunt for different color flowers and different animals. Owen struggled his way through the hike trapped in the backpack on Jordan’s back, while I helped Delaney over rocks and on her animal/flower hunt. She did awesome in the grande scheme of things, but did need a piggy back ride eventually up that last big hills. We saw 6 different color flowers, some butterflies, squirrels, birds, and a SNAKE.

The weather was great and the only complaint was the flies! We hadn’t and still haven’t really had any bugs other than this hike and we weren’t prepared. The flies got the worst up by the waterfall, so we didn’t stay too long to enjoy it but it was beautiful and Delaney was so proud of herself. We could see the ocean from where we stopped and turned around. Owen made it nearly the entire way back before falling asleep in the pack. Once we made it back, we all did a victory dance (a long 3 miles!). We tried to celebrate by letting Delaney pick dinner – and that backfired so we will end this story with our gratitude for the sweet kids that enjoy travel, adventure, and nature as much as we do.