Fishing

We just had NO luck fishing on our camping trip. Well, that isn't ENTIRELY true -- Kyle did catch this 12 inch bass on our very first trip down to the lake shore. I'm not sure if any of you have seen the Bill Dance commercial...I think on ESPN...when he tells the secret of making EVERY fish a BIG fish...but we tried it out with this picture. You are just supposed to hold it up CLOSE to the lense. Only problem here...Kyle's hands still dwarf it.
Luckily, the kids didn't loose patience when the fish weren't biting and were willing to give it a go once or twice every day. That left me with lots of opportunities to take pictures of them TRYING to catch fish. Hopefully, NEXT trip the fish will be BITING!!

Wildlife

From what I understand, Choke Canyon State Park is an animal preserve. I'm not exactly sure how that works out for all of those ducks during duck season -- poor, tasty dears -- but the rest of the the wildlife is OFF LIMITS! This makes for AWESOME animal sightings when you are driving around or riding bikes. I took these pictures from the comfort of the inside of Kyle's truck. Although, it sure would have been a more interesting blog if I had a story about tracking them miles across the park. :)

Sunsets

Our cabin at Choke Canyon...or cabinet as Luke loved to call it...was right on the water this year. The sunsets each night were AMAZING and added to the relaxed feel of this camping vacation.

The first night - when this picture (above) was taken - a storm front was approaching and it DRASTICALLY reduced the temperature the next day...but it didn't spoil our FUN!!

The next evening (above) - the clouds slowly began to clear off and open up crystal clear dark skies peppered with many more stars than we can now see living in the city limits. It reminded us of all of those clear nights that we sat out on our deck in Alabama and looked up at the sky with Kyla's telescope. We may bring that with us next year/time!!

Perhaps God saved the very best sunset for last - the colors were amazing on our final night. We were able to sit outside and watch a 'finger-nail' moon set just after the sun. AMAZING!!

Wildflowers

We just got home from a camping trip to Choke Canyon and let me just say that the wildflowers are in BLOOM in south Texas! Since we have moved back to Texas, the wildflowers haven't really bloomed very well - it has been too warm and too dry. However, we had a wet and cold winter - something the wildflowers LOVE - and they are gorgeous!

In the state park we found several mounds of bluebonnets near the water -- so OF COURSE I had to get a couple of pics of the kids. Unfortunately, I couldn't get Luke to stay still long enough to capture him by the bluebonnets...but the girls cooperated!

More campings pics and blogs to follow...but now I must tend to camping clean-up and a LONG overdue visit to my parent's house. Pflugerville...here we come!!! :)

Signing His Cards

It's funny, but when I took these pictures I didn't realize that Luke was resting his chin on the table as he wrote these cards. Perhaps I was so wrapped up in the idea of taking a picture of him signing his first Valentine's Day cards....just like I did with BOTH of his sisters. After all, I did spend the time carefully writing his name in dashed letters so that they would be very easy for him to trace. The problem - after about the first two - he announced that he was DONE! I did convince him to finish but I think that it was because I promised him one of the Fun Dips that he was giving away. It just seems like further proof that there is some aversion to writing that can be found on the Y chromosome.

Winning Box...

I am behind on a few posts that might just include a photo or two and a quick word (because anyone who knows me...knows that I just HAVE to have at least a quick word...or TWO...with you!) ha! This box was Summer's Valentine Box for her class decorating contest -- she won "Most Original Design." We stole the idea from a scrapbook page I once did - where I made a monkey out of nothing but alot of circles and one oval. I had used the monkey on the page because she was ALWAYS hanging upside down on the side of our swingset. She chose the monkey because her class is known as the Maryfield Monkeys - that name suits her perfectly!