Lost Pines - The Hike

So the next morning we decided it would be a great idea to go exploring some of the hiking trails on property.  We headed down to the Colorado River to find a trail that went along the riverbank.

3 happy kids and 1 still not cooperating. We had to praise Ashley just for letting us see her face.

While the other kids were playing ball Mike ran off after Ashley.

We finally corralled her to come back and play tetherball. They all really had fun with this, except when the ball would hit them in the face. Okay who can blame Ashley for not wanting to participate?

Then we started off along the river...

So far so good.

The kids liked seeing these honeysuckles everywhere. Until they realized they were often covered with ants. Yikes!

Raccoon tracks...

Here we are...the happy family! I was feeling refreshed and revived after a good night's sleep.

The kids were looking at a bug.

Did I say it was hot here? Burn bans all around the state.

Mike climbed up to the top of this little ridge to get this aerial shot.

At this point everyone was getting really tired. We came to the end of the trail (at the end of the property), but then there was this little gate that you could walk through but it was made so that a horse could not get through. We decided to check it out and it appeared that we may encounter a horse or two if lucky. We also had to keep in mind that we had to go back the way we came to get back to the hotel.

This was probably our big mistake. It was nice. At first. But then the kids started complaining. And they are now experts at identifying horse poop. We persevered.

Even I told Mike we had to turn back. But then we ran into this other family (that had older kids, not 3 year olds), that told us if we went just a bit further there was this really cool tree. Well, we had to go see SOMEthing. (By the way, no horses. Just their evidence of existence.)

Here is the giant pecan tree. Okay great. Let's go back now. At this point all the kids were complaining. A few were crying. But we were giving the gift of nature! The gift of accomplishment! (Though this picture doesn't show it some of our others show the slumped back has returned. I didn't even realize it this time. I actually felt good but I guess it was inevitable after all that trudging forward.)

Someone give these kids a ride!

Finally, 2 miles later, we found ourselves back at the hotel. I'm pretty sure we ruined all the kids for life for hiking. They all said they hated it (though I think if we'd not gone into the horse trails they all would have been happy with it). They all said "Don't ever take me hiking ever again!"

Kaitlyn's remark was the best. "I am NOT a hiker. I am a SLEEPER!" I replied "Well that just makes you sound lazy!" Kaitlyn: "Well, I only feel like being LAZY after I've been hiking all morning!" Touche. I can relate. But remember, we are going to be an active family! So they're out of luck.

All in all, it was good for them. And I really do think we just went too far. They are awfully little to go as far as we did.

When we got back it was just in time for arts & crafts. They really enjoyed making beaded necklaces. Kaitlyn, Mackenzie and Reagan made their names out of letter beads. Ashley just put a bunch of jumbled up letters and beads together and then instead of tying hers to be a necklace we knotted both ends so that hers was a "line" or a "swing" as she called. She was very happy.

Back at the hotel...Kaitlyn's many dogs that accompanied us on the trip (this is not all of them!) had been put in timeout for misbehaving.

Our last night there Mike and I put the kids into kids camp while we drove into Austin to go have dinner with some friends. When we got back they all had fun playing Uno on Mike's ipad.

And thus concludes the third and final part of our trip and yet another fine, fun, family vacation with the Griswolds.