Now that we are half way through pregnancy Ally is finally starting to show signs that she’s having a baby. In our typical photojournalistic lifestyle we’ve decided to document each passing month with a memorable photo. With a slight twist; we are going to take a photo of Ally’s belly each month from now till the due date on top of a mountain.

Backtracking a bit, it seems that each month we’ve already done a big, challenging climb. To start things off, we were in St. Lucia when Ally was around 10 weeks and climbed both of the Pitons (many locals we spoke to have never climbed either). The first and bigger of the two was actually the easier, just your basic hike up to just over 2500 feet, but starting at the beach. The second Piton we climbed, Petit Piton, was only slightly smaller, just under 2500 feet only we needed to use ropes to pull ourselves up near vertical walls. It was a lot of fun and a major accomplishment. Below are a few photos from the trip:

Us with our guide Mac and Solomon at the beach after hiking Gros Piton

Eric rappelling down a cliff of Petit Piton

Ally ducking through the rabbit hole of Petit Piton

April brought us to our long awaited hike up Mt. Monroe. This was going to be our first of the NH 4000 footers until we got there and realized there was still 4 feet of snow on the ground last April. We’ve been wanting to go back ever since and finally got our chance on a beautiful, although forecasted for rain, day.

Group photo at the top of Mt. Monroe

Ally and Rusty show the blue sky above Washington.

Which brings us to May. We figured this might be our last chance for a BIG hike so we planned a good one. 8.7 miles over three peaks. We had set our sights on the Franconia Ridge, hiking up Mt. Lafayette, over Lincoln and Little Haystack and down the Falling Waters trail back to the car. It was another perfect day for hiking, clear sky’s and mid to upper 70’s. I had guessed it would take us about 8 hours. Well, we made it to the top of Lafayette in under three hours and were back to the car just at the six hour mark. We had enough time to grab an ice cream for Rusty and relax in the sun a bit before our drive home.

The family on top of Lafayette

The first official “Belly Shot”, Ally’s 5 Month Belly on top of Lafayette

Next up: We are headed to the Presidential’s to check off Mt. Adams and Mt. Jefferson on an overnight adventure.