Two Off My List

This summer, my mission is to hit up as many state parks and places of interest as we can on weekends we have nothing going. Which, you know, will most likely be all of 3 things that we'll end up doing this summer. Life is incredibly busy, and I'm not sure that it should be. And I'm not just talking about our family. It's a national epidemic. Possibly even worldwide.

But shockingly, this past weekend we made it to two different fun, local places. Saturday evening after dinner we hiked to the Best Manmade Waterfall Ever at one of the local state parks. This is 2 miles from the house, and we sneak up here as often as we can. And as an added bonus this year, the hiking trail to the falls has been groomed recently. No longer is it sporting ruts deep enough to swallow a leg. Yeah!

One of the things I love best about our state park runs is that it's a family event. And by family event, I mean that all the kids enjoy spending time with us there. Sam and the boys were having a contest to see who could go the longest without stepping on the ground. The trail is that rocky at places. Family games, for the win. And even Micah got into the fun by not asking to be carried until the last few minutes on the way home. Also a win!

And then on Sunday we visited the highest point in the state, which just happens to be about twenty minutes away.

For whatever odd reason, we've not had the kids there previous to this. I'm not sure why, but it's been remedied now. There's this fun tower that you climb to see over the treetops. See?

That fun tower freaks me out. I'm not gonna lie. I just don't do heights, and when a lot of people (i.e., more than one) are on it at once, it's prone to sway a bit. I definitely don't do that. So I didn't. And Micah was having none of it either. He chose to walk Woody back to the van instead of taking the chance that someone might accidentally shuffle him too close it and make him - gasp - touch it. I had to physically drag him back to the tower to show him the fun, big rocks that he could play on. Poor kiddo. He inherited that debilitating phobia directly from his mama. And shockingly, up until Sunday, I didn't even know it.

Here's a view from the top, taken by Not Me.

That's the boy down there, playing on the big rocks with Woody. I thought it might need explained.

There was a fun hiking trail, too, that the boys enjoyed discovering. We hiked the mile back to the picnic area, and I have to say that it was one of the most awesome trails I've ever walked. I totally expected to see a rabbit pop out of the brush and invite me to drink some magical tea.

So that was a good start to my summer of going and doing. Fingers crossed that we actually visit more places than these two over the course of summer.