As a former lifeguard, I am never off-duty. As we sit next to the pool on vacations, I am cringing in my heart. I worry about the one time that I turn my back what would happen. Truly it takes me more than one drink to even watch other peoples' kids play in the water. I am a freak when it comes to water, so I have done my children a disservice up to this point.
We did put MacKenzie in lessons early on, but being the late bloomer she is, it didn't seem to click until this weekend. Saturday, we went to a friend's party, who has a pool. By the end of the day, both kids went from fear to embracing it. They both still wore life jackets but didn't mind if their faces got wet. MacKenzie jumped right in with no fear and held her breath as she went under, and Brock was jumping to someone with ease.
Memorial Day Adventure:
Jeremy came up with a great idea. We went to Pedernales State Falls on Monday, and we even talked our own personal guinea pigs into taking this adventure with us. They also have two kids about the same age as ours.
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| Smiling Kids |
We headed out at 8:30 and were there by 9:15. We have been toying with the idea of buying a camper, so we purchased an unlimited state park pass to see if we would actually use the camper to its potential.
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| Still smiling... |
The first stop - the falls. After hiking down to the "falls", I imagined that the only falling we were going to see was me or the kids rolling down the gravel roads. Boy, scraped kids are a fun-stopper! We all survived unscathed, however cranky three-year-olds are no fun, either.
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| We rescued a turtle! |
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| The Release |
The trip to the "falls" was complete with a rescued turtle, a snake, and lots of sand in our shoes.
Note that when I say "falls", it was more like trickles of water; Brock peed faster than the water was running! Also, the water was just standing in most places, so we did a lot of hiking up the flattened rocks.
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| This should have been a river! |
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| We had to hike to see these white caps. |
We are experiencing a severe drought right now, yet I forget how powerful that nature is. It can take something as hard as stone and grind it in to sand. God is so amazing!
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| Long walk home |
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| If you look closely, he is scolding her. |
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| Who looks more tired here: Parents or Kids? |
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| Brock in the river bed (aka - Bedrock) |
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| MacKenzie in the huge rock/river bed. |
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| This reminded me of Jesus's rock, so I had to share. |
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| Caves |
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| They aren't happy and smiling anymore. |
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| Our Journey |
What goes up, must come down....yes, the giant slope we came down...we had to go up. The kids did well, but I was dying! I am so out of shape. **Yet no matter how true this is, I feel better and more confident than last summer.
Picnic any one? Yes, we even had our own picnic, complete with a cooler, fruit, chips, and sandwiches we made on the spot. There was a nice breeze - a little tornado-ish, so we held our stuff down. Saying that I was grateful for the wind tornado is an understatement. I am an AC kind of girl. I hate being hot, sweating, and burning. I love viewing nature, but through the car window suits me just fine on most days. This might be why I prefer Colorado summers? But my digression is only making me long for the mountains, so I will stay with the bug catching our kids did after lunch, while we visited and packed for the swim area.
Hiking, Wading, and Splashing about! Since the water was so low, we had to walk forever to get DOWN to the river to swim, but it was fun for the kids. The not so fun part was getting all 4 back UP the hill without having to carry them. The daddies' took care of that part while the wives lugged the junk. The older kids just looked cute while the rest of us huffed and puffed up the hill.
I am so glad we did this. It was hot but worth it.
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