camping

 We took the girls camping this weekend, and it was Sadie's first time in a tent. I was hesitant to bring her because she's recently become a great sleeper in her crib and I didn't want to risk changing her good habits! But the Texas summer is fast approaching and I knew this would be one of the last weekends that would work for us to camp there--so we packed up all three kids and headed to Colorado Bend state park.

Colorado Bend is about 2 hrs from Austin in the hill country and is right on the Colorado River. The last eight miles are all dirt roads to the park, so it really feels like you are in the middle of nowhere. The drive out there was beautiful with all the wildflowers in bloom. We saw lots of wildlife too--we even saw a woman who had just run over a hog on the highway, and found a ginormous dead snake in the middle of the road. Joel threw the snake on top of our car to bring home (???) but luckily it fell off!!

snake!!

she loves to nap in her carseat, and did great at night!

 We misread the park map and thought that we would be able to drive fairly close to Gorman Falls-which is a 60 ft waterfall that is in the park. We arrived at the parking lot area and then realized that the word "gate" on the map meant that a gate was closed and blocking the shortest pathway to the waterfall. We almost turned around but figured we'd driven this far we might as well go for it. It was at least a 1.5 mile hike just to get to the falls and it was 4:30 already. After about an hour of hiking we met a woman and asked her if we were getting close. She said that we were close but that it was "really steep" to get there and then looked at us like we wouldn't be able to manage it.

hiking to Gorman Falls

 Suddenly the flat terrain started getting rockier and more challenging, and the girls kept asking, "Is this the steep part she was talking about? It must be!" Then we got to the very end and realized why that woman was so concerned. Harley was with us and he just about had a heart attack when he saw the cliff he was supposed to scale down!

"This must be the steep part."

"Nevermind--this is the steep part!!"

We made it!! Baby carrier and all!

Grandma and Gpa's visit

Boat-Mama and Grampa came down to visit for their spring break and we kept them pretty busy! They had four kids so they are used to a little chaos. They always jump right in and start helping out from morning to night. They changed diapers, babysat the girls while I ran errands, went strawberry picking, colored Easter eggs, restained our bench out front, and even went hog hunting (I will spare you those pics, but everyone got a hog!).

Grandma took most of the pics and I did not get copies of her pictures yet, but here's some pics I took at the berry patch. We've picked berries with them in Wisconsin and in Texas before, and picking is something that the girls associate with Gma and Gpa. Just the other day Larkin was eating some cauliflower and said, "We should go cauliflower picking sometime with Boat-mama and Grampa!"

flowers

 The wildflowers are in full bloom this year! They both love picking but Larkin especially gets excited about all the flowers. Her favorite flower is the Indian Paintbrush and she was so disappointed last year when there were hardly because of the drought. All year she's talked about which flowers would be growing and how she just couldn't wait to start picking them.

We headed to the trail near our house and brought some butterfly nets too. We rounded a corner and came upon a field filled with flowers and butterflies.  Willa gasped and said, "Mom, it's a beautiful world today."

Willa excited about catching a butterfly--
"I GOT HIM!!"

monarch caterpillar

The only pic I took of all three in the bluebonnets, but it's pretty good!

 Note to self--check for prickly pear cactus before telling them to sit down! Larkin got a bum-full of prickers!