Redmond was enjoying every single smell along the way!

About 1.25 miles up the trail is where the beautiful twin waterfalls are located.

The next 3.5 miles of the trail lead to a campground.  Along the way we saw so many huge banana slugs, a few garter snakes, a mouse, a chipmunk and a few birds.

Wesley would have been in slug heaven!

Not only do you have amazing trees, plants and rocks to look at – since the trail follows the river you get to see it often, but you hear it almost the whole time you are hiking.

I am a slow hiker…I did not make it to the end.  We had to get to Adrianne’s birthday party.  So at the 2 hour mark, even though I knew I was almost at the end, I turned around.  I took the backpack and the camera and started the hike back to the car.  Joshua wanted to get the end (and I wanted him to also) so he and Redmond would run ahead for 10 minutes and hopefully the would get to the end.  They did.  They only had to run for 4 minutes.   They got to the campsite area and then ran back to catch up with me. Our hike back went well.  It always seems faster when you are going back.

No kids to take pictures of so...

I have to include these pictures of Redmond.  Good thing he was on leash the whole time.  He would find a smell and just want to GO to find it.

Wesley was running to catch up when he took a fall. So we made it six whole minutes before we had tears and blood.  Just a small scrape on the hand, but it sure must have hurt.

Because of the recent rains the river (South Fork of the Snoqualmie) was really flowing. There were a half dozen or so kayakers taking advantage of the extra volume.  The kids were really intrigued.

Once the trail started heading up hill Jillian ran out of steam. She ground to a halt. Apparently she doesn’t have a low gear. From this point on there are no pictures of her on the trail because she is riding on my back.  Despite the fall, Wesley was a trooper and wanted to keep going on. Even when he said he was tired, when given the choice, he wanted to keep going over returning to the car.  Here he is next to a big moss covered rock. He spent a lot of time on top as well.

Jillian woke up when we got to the overlook for the lower falls. She didn’t actually want to get out and walk, but she did make me turn sideways so she could see.  Here is Wesley getting a little wet from the spray of the falls. At this point the kids got fruit leathers. Food is a good motivator.

Even after climbing up the many and rather steep steps from the lookout Wesley agreed to keep going to the bridge over the river between the falls. We agreed granola bars would be had there.  We also agreed that on the way back I would carry him on all the uphill stretches as I’d done on a few of the harder sections on the way to the bridge. On the way we came across this log. Wesley was really taken with the stumps and fallen logs. Especially the nurse logs. He pointed out all of them.  You can see he is holding his hand a bit gingerly.

At the bridge Redmond was a little freaked out. He wouldn’t sit near the edge of the bridge and he wouldn’t put his back to the edge of the bridge. I’m not sure he thought it was all that safe. Here he is exactly in the middle, the only place he would sit for a picture.

After the granola bars we headed back to the car. Despite being mostly downhill, there were plenty of uphills for my taste. I was huffing and puffing and we were garnering a fair bit of attention. Especially from people who saw me carrying Wesley and then couldn’t help but say “Oh, two of them” when they passed and could finally see J on my back.  Wesley saved a native snail from sure destruction by moving him off the path to a safer location.

To keep Wesley motivated on the way back to the car (I was at this point out of snacks) I told him I had a surprise for him. I gave him clue after clue. We got all the way to “It has ice cream, is some type of drink, it is fizzy, brown, and called some kind of ‘float’”. I think he must of been exhausted because he could not for the life of him come up with the answer. I finally gave in a few hundred yards from the end and told him. He and J who was awake again by this point were very excited.

We stopped in Issaquah and went to the XXX Rootbeer Drive-in.  An awesome place on every level. Highly recommended. The people were so friendly. First the kids climbed up into a coin operated wagon train and the waitress came over and dropped fifty cents in from her apron to fire it up. Then, when we ordered, she gave the kids two bouncy balls by tossing them against the window and letting the kids chase them down in the restaurant.

The kids loved the stools at the walk-up window. Because of the weather the place was much less busy than usual. We could have had a booth, but the kids loved those stools. So we got our drinks to go. Drinks by the way, which came with a plastic camel on top of the ice cream for Wesley, and a giraffe for Jillian.

Jillian’s float is the small one. Wesley is drinking his. Mine, only 40 cents more than theirs, was immense. Redmond got to help me finish it in the car. Such a friendly place and very family oriented (We were shown to the bathroom by a very polite 9 or 10 year old girl in waitress uniform and related to somebody working there). I think we will have to make at least one more trip out there this summer.  And yes, by the way, the whole restaurant is that packed with stuff.

We woke up today to the unusual, if not totally rare, occurrence of snow in Austin. It started with the typical hard icy rain/snow mix and at first we thought that was that. But then after a bit it really did snow. Real snow. Big flakes that actually stuck to the ground, and get this, accumulated. We had about 1.5 inches of accumulation by midday. It continued to snow the rest of the day, but because it had warmed up it didn’t really stick much after lunch. We did what pretty much everyone else in Austin did. We took full advantage.

Because of doctor’s appointments, sick children and other considerations (not least of which is that no one in Texas can drive if they are even predicting snow) I ended up at home rather than at work today. So Wesley and I had a great time. Jillian was pretty sick and though she came out a couple of times she didn’t have nearly as good a time as we did. We started with a good old fashioned snowball fight.

He really, really liked having snowball fights. Look at his face. He was loving it.

We took a break and made a little snowman. This was before we got most of the snow. It could have been bigger, but served its purpose. He later knocked it off the deck with a couple of snowballs.

This was about as much fun as Jillian would have: standing around near the door and looking before getting cold and going inside.  It took us longer to find her boots and mittens than she was actually outside.

After getting hit with a few too many snowballs we did a bit of cardboard sledding (we don’t actually own a sled) and then played some snow baseball.

After the snow fell a bit more heavily Amber and Wesley made a snowman in the front yard. It was really quite nice, complete with carrot nose and rosemary hair.

Like his smaller brother in the backyard, this snowman was not long for the world. His enemy was not global warming, but a charging Wesley.

It is nice that we finally got a “real” snowfall. It was quite a bit a fun. It gave us an excuse to drink hot chocolate and cider and just have a really good time. Wesley would have stayed out until his arms froze off. Even Redmond, who normally refuses to go out in the cold and wet did his share of playing with us.

I ended up doing more yard work in the snow than I’ve done in nice weather of the last few months. I learned that if you snow covered overhead branches you will get a face full of snow and wet when you least expect it. I also learned that said branches, rather than landing gently on the roof and needing a tug to get them off, will come careening down every which way and you’d better be prepared to move.

At first we just trudged through some mud and didn’t get too wet or dirty.

Check out the mud caked to her shoes.

What is Jillian pointing at? Vultures. Lots of vultures.

We saw at least 50 vultures on two towers.

We were staying pretty dry until we crossed the creek. Because of the rainfall the creek was running higher than usual.  The only thing to do? Fall in of course.

Wes fell in a hole and got really wet.

Once you get wet you might as well get muddy.  Really, really, really muddy.

This was just the start.

Time lapse of the kids in the big mud puddle.

We had a fabulous time. We stripped the kids naked before they got in the car and had to tie Redmond in the back of the wagon to keep his muddy self off the seats.  I hope it is muddy next time we go.  A lot better than the trips in the 100F+ temp this Summer.

For all of Jillian’s crafts and her earlier pumpkin she has wanted happy face pumpkins, Wesley wants mean or angry faces, and Redmond just wants to eat them.

Both kids did  a good job assisting in the gutting of the pumpkins and neither was too grossed out (different than last year).

The finished product. From left to right: Jillian’s Happy Face, a Redmond inspired dog paw, and Wesley’s Angry Bat. He drew it on the pumpkin himself. I just did the cutting.

I made his line out of a piece of string and his hook out of a clothes pin.  The bait we packed was just bits of things we found in the kitchen.

So right after dinner, the whole family walked over to the pond.

Ready to GO!

Using a bit of lettuce as bait.

Getting ready to cast his bait into the pond.

Our bait: dry pasta, veggie straws, lettuce, cheese ravaoli & onion.

Wesley is trying out different fishing strategies & Redmond really wanting to play with the ducks.

Trying to share with Jillian - but he could not bring himself to do it.

Now it is Jillian's turn to sit on the ledge.

Today, Wesley asked if he could go fishing again…I wonder if it is time to get a real fishing pole!

Our tent. Red's crate in the vestibule.

Our destination was Inks Lake State Park outside of Burnet, TX.  It is about a 90 minute drive from Austin and gets you into the northern part of the Hill Country.  The lake is formed by Inks Lake Dam on the Colorado River at an elevation of about 900 feet.  It isn’t exactly back country.  The campground boasts such features as showers (with free hot water), Wi-Fi, a store, cabins with AC, and a golf course.  The lake is rather nice and virtually everyone was either swimming, boating or fishing.

When we got there we were bummed to find out that a burn ban was in effect.  This wasn’t the impression that we got from the website which chose to showcase this:

The logo is a campfire for goodness sake.

Instead of the big warning at the top of the page that was so prominent on some of the pages of other campgrounds.  We dropped those from consideration because after all, what is a camping trip (especially to little kids) if you couldn’t roast marshmallows over a fire?  As it turned out, we weren’t even allowed to use charcoal in the grill provided at our site.  So after setting up tent we headed into Marble Falls (about 35 minutes away) to the only store selling camping gear, WalMart, so we could buy a propane stove.  Raw chicken just isn’t really our thing.

Firing up the new stove.

Hungry for dinner.

I was surprised when I made our camping reservation to find that only 5 spots were available.  Granted it was less than a week out, but I wrongfully figured that normal people would not choose to camp in 100+ degree weather.  I had forgotten that these are not normal people.  These are Texans.  We didn’t get a lakeside campsite, which would have been really nice, but we did get a nice spot in the less crowded area of the campground near the hiking trails.  Spot 320 did just fine for us.

Our campsite was right next to a small playground.

The kids really liked the tent. Amazing how much smaller it seems crammed with books, stuffed animals and sleeping bags.  Wesley was actually a big help both with the setup and take down.  He helped with poles, stakes and unpacking.

Working on the tent.

Not sleeping in the tent. The start of a trend.

We did normal campground things.  Checked out one of the fishing piers:

On the fishing pier near our site.

Looking off the pier, wanting to go swimming.

Went swimming, but ended up at the playground first:

Jillian getting some help on the see-saw.

And finally went swimming:

"Floating" with her lifejacket.

Finding some kind of egg sack.

Loving the handles on those life jackets (just playing around).

We didn’t swim long though.  Because in rolled a thunderstorm.  The lighting was starting to make us a little uneasy. So we packed up and headed back to the camp. This is our second camping trip in Texas and our second thunderstorm.

Storm rolling in.

As it turns out the storm mostly missed us.  There was some really nice lighting and it sprinkled, Washington-like, most of the night.  But we never did get the torrential downpour we were expecting.  As usual the kids were not pro-sleep. They were having a crazy hard time getting to sleep.  So I took the kids, one at a time on long walks around the campground starting at about 9:30p.  These walks had two objectives: 1) get the kids apart, so the kid left behind could fall asleep.  2) wear out the walking kid so they would fall asleep when they got back to the tent.  The walks were a bust.  Wesley finally fell asleep sometime after 10:30p.  Jillian was more or less awake all night. By 2:00am I was walking her around again because she was crying and yelling “Go Home” over and over again.  We ended up in the car.  She fell asleep from about 5:30 until 8a.  Not the best nights sleep any of us has had.

Almost awake after sleeping in the car.

And of course what story about Texas would be complete without fire ants?  Not this one.  It turns out they decided to move into the tent as well.  Crawling through the small hole where the zippers touch. They moved into a mesh pocket on the side of the tent.  Nothing in there but a small stuffed animal.  There were maybe a hundred or so.  That was my end of the tent.  Luckily for me Jillian insisted we sleep in the car, so I only ended up with a few bites.  Amber said that by morning when she cleaned the tent they were all over my pillow.

Jillian spent most of the morning in the car. She just wanted to go home.  I’ll admit so did I.  We’ll go camping again, but I think longer might be better in some ways.  It would give us a chance to get used to the tent and maybe relax a bit more (or at least get a nap in).  The ride home was smooth. The kids mostly slept and so did Redmond (who also managed not to hurl all over the place, which was awesome).

Jillian happy to be headed home.

Last year we found that a small pool on the deck was a nice way to cool down.  But that pool went through a hard life this winter and is no longer able to hold the water.  So the kids and I went to Toys-R-Us this week to get a new one.

Here is our old pool - sliding into the water last July.

We ended up with the same pool we got last year, only the bigger size.

Our new pool - getting ready to have a fun time.

The kids are really enjoying it.  The slide is perfect!

Jillian and Wesley want to be in the water and backyard all the time now!

And Redmond even likes the pool too

We picked up the parts at the hardware store for less than $20 and I put it together in an evening while the kids were asleep.  It is very simple to assemble and kind of amazing that with a bike pump, a bit of PVC and a few pieces of hardware you can launch pop bottles way, way up in the air.  I use 1/2″ PVC (which I had to sand a bit to get it to fit the bottle) and I epoxied in a pool toy inflator stem that comes with the pump into the end of the pipe.  Put the bottle on, insert the nails into the eye-bolts and pump it up.

Pump it up, pull the rope and blastoff!

The next day Wesley and I shot a few “air only” bottles from the driveway (easily clearing the house and into the neighbors’ yards).   Later that night we went to an empty field at the park and shot them off with water.   We garnered a good deal of attention and had a blast (pun intended).  One-third full of water the bottles go two to three times as high and get you a little wet which adds to the fun.  We got it up to about 75 PSI before it started leaking too badly.

Jillian helps pump.

Wesley pulls the pins...

3...2...1...Blastoff!

Did I mention they loved it?

Jillian like launching them too.

Redmond wasn't so sure.

Next weekend we head out with the Myer’s family to blast some more off.  More people means more fun (and more people to do the pumping)!