Spring Break -March 2010

Mark and Melissa, Matt's brother and sister-in-law invited us to join their in their second annual Spring Break camping trip. So Matt was able to take a few days off, and we drove North (I think) about 2 hours to a place called Wolf Creek Park.

The weather was perfect, and we all had a great time. Lots of down time, good food, great company, and lots of togetherness time outdoors. It was a great trip.

We took our camper (first trip of the season) and set up our campsite. The kids always love to play inside the camper. This year, Rachael, my niece, and Kimball especially enjoyed themselves in there.

We did lots of fun things at the park. We went fishing, caught bugs, went on a nature walk, and had lots of fires to roast marshmellows and make smores. Yum, Yum.

Here's some pictures of the trip:

playing in the camper:

Our campground:

Fishing at Lake Livingston
(which is a HUGE lake!!)

I borrowed some fishing poles from some church friends, and we had a blast! Matt took Allison to buy the worms, and she and Sarah helped put them on the hook. The leftover worms provided Allison lots of enjoyment after she was through fishing. She carried them around in the container and showed off to her cousins and other kids at the campground.

Kimball was so determined to "fish" at the lake, that I decided to tie a rope to his fishing pole (and hang ON to it myself) before it ended up at the bottom of the lake. There was no way I was going to go in after it, if he dropped it. The water was freezing!!

You can see here in the first few pictures that at the beginning, Kimball held the fishing pole, and "fished" like a normal human being.

But that didn't last long. Soon after, he just resorted to dropping the whole thing in the water, and reeled it in with the rope I tied to it. (see below)

Then I got even smarter and tied the rope TO KIMBALL, through his belt loop,

so he didn't do a little "accidental swimming" himself.

(I'm starting to figure out the way little boys think -- I was pretty proud of myself for being so smart).

Bug Catching:

One morning, while Sarah and I took a bathroom break together, we saw a HUGE bug on the outside wall of the restrooms. It was just sitting there, and was still there the next morning, I noticed. So Allison and Matt went down to catch the bug in our bug catcher.

Thanks to a fellow camper, we discovered that it was actually a LUNA MOTH. It was seriously one of the biggest moths, and coolest bugs I have ever seen! Here's a little bit about them:

the Luna Moth is in the Saturniidae, the family that includes Giant Silkworm Moths; these are large moths with wingspans of up to almost 6", but the 5" Luna Moth appears even larger because of long tails on its hindwings

After Allison, once again, took her "find" around to everyone and showed off, she decided to get it out of the bug catcher. To our surprise and AMAZEMENT, this moth just "chilled out" on her hand, sleeve, or wherever she put it. (and yes, it was still alive). Here are some pictures of the luna moth and Allison:

to be continued . . .