Back to nature... but only for a while

This week was our boys' first week of summer vacation. We had some business to attend to in regard to our move, but I managed to sneak in a couple of fun things. You already know about taking them to see the new Indiana Jones movie. The other fun thing we did involved a hike and picnic at a local state park, only 20 minutes or so from our house. This park is someplace both boys have visited before, but I'd never been, and they wanted to go back, therefore we did just that.


It was a perfect day - sunny, not terribly hot, with a nice breeze blowing. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day weather-wise.

We saw these beautiful tiger lilies that reminded me of my grandparents' yard when I was little.

The boys had an awesome time exploring! They found a big mushroom and my oldest son pointed out the various stages of decomposition in trees. I was very impressed with his attention to detail.

We saw birds, turtles, tadpoles, frogs, dragonflies, butterflies and squirrels, all the critters one would expect to see during an outing such as this.
Then we just happened to see this... Yep, we just had to see a snake! The boys thought it was cool, but frankly, I could have done without that part of our outing.