We finally took Sammy out for his first “hike” this past Saturday.

I put it in quotes because we didn’t actually find the hike we were looking for, so we stopped, parked, and hiked down a dirt road for about a mile.

One of my favorite things to take pictures of during our hikes is what is found along the trail, in this case, road.

I like to see what naturally grows in these areas, although I have no clue what the names of the plants/flowers are.

But I do know that one, and you’d better not touch it! We kept pointing it out to the boys, hoping to engrave the image in their mind and drive the point home to never touch poison oak! Did you know that dogs are not affected by poison oak? It gets trapped on their fur and doesn’t go to their skin. But you can still get it by petting your dog after they’ve been in poison oak, so you’ll still want to keep them away from it.

Little tidbit I learned from Don this past weekend.

I usually have my little flower partner by my side while I’m taking these shots.

Owen likes to walk with me and smell them all.

He also likes to tell me which ones to take pictures of, just in case I didn’t see it.

He’s getting better at not feeling like he has to pick everything his smells, too.

Which is good, because I love to take pictures of him smelling the flowers along the way.