Bastrop State Park

Here's some pics from our day trip to Bastrop State Park a few weeks ago. It's about 45 minutes from our house and has lots of great hiking trails in the woods with pines and hardwoods. The area is actually called the "Lost Pines" because it's the only pine forest in Central Texas!

Here's Joel under the bridge pretending to be the troll from the Billy Goats Gruff. The girls ran over the little bridge probably twenty times pretending to be all the billy goats! "Who's that tromping over my bridge??!"



The girls LOVE to hike and probably did close to three miles this day without a single complaint (well, ok Willa did ask to be carried once but not for long!). They do like to make lots of stops though to check out the scenery on the ground. On this hike the pine needles were a big hit. Larkin was very meticulous when it came to collecting her needles. She inspected each needle before taking it, and then stacked them one by one, all facing the same direction. She kept saying that they were so beautiful and that this was the "greatest day" since she got to collect so many pine needles. I tried to tell her that if she likes the pine needles so much, she could just grab a huge handful and shove them in my backpack. She looked at me like I was crazy and stuck with her own method.

Willa however had no qualms about grabbing huge handfuls!


We spent about half an hour just sitting on a trail while the girls collected pine cones and needles. They're at such a fun age where the little things in life are so entertaining and interesting to them!