Spring Canoe Trips

Even though we've had an incredibly rainy spring, we managed to squeeze in a couple quick canoe trips.  We were hoping for more time to camp and canoe, but you'll never hear us complain about rain!

Our first trip was just a day trip to Possum Kingdom.  We canoed from public access area #4 to Hell's Gate.  It was a wonderful day: calm waters, not too hot, not too many boats.

Our second trip was interesting.  Our goal was to camp at Canyon Lake and return to a great swim area we found a couple years ago.  When we arrived, we found the campground closed due to flooding.  A note on the website would have been nice :)  We passed a lot of flood damage on the way down that was pretty incredible.  We ended up heading north about 85 miles to Inks Lake State Park.  We had been there once before for a family get together, but this time we were able to explore more and enjoy the lake.  We camped at site 48 which put us just feet from the water.  It was so nice to be able to leave our canoe in the water and load/unload easily.

Fall- Winter Catch Up

Well, I've totally neglected this blog and have a lot to catch up on.  I considered ditching the whole thing, but I really like having a place where I can look back and remember trips, events, etc.  So this post is just a photo dump from fall and winter '14-15.

Thanksgiving weekend

Thanksgiving weekend

Thanksgiving weekend

Our department "Chemistree"

Titus helping with a t-shirt rag quilt that I made for a friend's son.

Quilt pieces laid out

Completed!

Festive Titus

Festive Titus

Festive Titus

Nail art gift

Titus at Mom's house

Christmas with Brokaws

Christmas at Mom's house

New washer and dryer- happy 13th anniversary to us!  Our 32 year old washer finally bit the dust.

Target practice- Adam

Target practice- Josh and Adam

Target practice-Brady and Jesse

Target practice-all the guys

Target practice-Jesse

Target practice-Josh

More to come...

November Snow

We only got about 1/2" of snow, but it was enough to make the roads slick and delay school for 2 hours.  Titus loves the chance to get extra play time on cold mornings like this. 

Titus just can't wait to go out and play in the snow!

Let's go play!!!

Titus loves his frisbee, snow, and cold weather.

I love that our boy is still so playful at nearly 10 1/2 years old.

Handsome boy!

Snow paw print

Some of our neighbor's cows greeted us on our walk.

The bull was giving Titus the stink eye.

Here comes Blue Eye!  I don't know her real name, but she has 1 blue eye that I think is so pretty.

Pretty blue eye

Here comes Mama!  I also don't know her real name, but I've seen her nursing Blue Eye, so I assume she's the mama.

Mother/daughter greeting

The cows just stare at Titus and aren't really sure about him acting so happy in the snow.

They were really wishing I had carrots with me this morning.

Titus prints alongside some smaller animal prints.  I love seeing all the animal activity in the snow!

Some videos of our snow dog:

Fall Break 2014

We headed to Lost Maples State Natural Area for fall break this year.  We spent the first night in the main campground and then did a little backpacking to reach our site for the next night.  We were a little early for the colorful leaves, but it was still really nice and the weather was perfect. 

Lost Maples State Natural Area

Can you spot those 2 tiny water specks in the picture?  That's where we ended up camping (after a steep descent!)

The boys resting after our hike.

A great little swimming hole- deep enough to jump off the lower cliffs (no we didn't try).

Of course Titus couldn't resist the water.

On our 2nd night, a troop of boy scouts arrived at 12:30am!  We woke up surrounded by 16 new tents- crazy!  We packed up as quickly as possible and hiked out. 

Before heading home, we stopped at 2 other parks: Hill Country State Natural Area and Government Canyon State Natural Area.  At Hill Country, we experienced their frontier day.  There were some restored tractors, a chuck wagon, covered wagon rides, etc.  It was pretty hot so we didn't stay long, but it's a great park if you like horses.  Government Canyon is definitely a place we need to go back and explore some more someday.  Pets aren't allowed in the backcountry, so we were limited in what we could see with Titus. 

Titus and tractors- Hill Country State Natural Area