Poppy Camp 2011

Back in October we had our 2nd annual Poppy Camp with family.  We celebrated my dad and looked back on 2 years without him.  The kids had a blast even though it stormed most of the weekend.

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Fort Parker State Park

We took a short drive over to Mexia to Fort Parker State Park.  We had never been there before and with gas prices rising we thought it would be a quick weekend get-away.  The park is very small and quiet.  There was only hiking and canoeing to do there in the park but the surrounding town and the park itself have a ton of Texas history.  So, we took in some of the historic sites and learned about the Commanche Indians, Cynthia Ann Parker and the insuing raid that went on.  The kids even got into the history which is always a good thing!  I very highly reecommend this park for a quick weekend get-away if you don't mind small and quiet!  Here is a quick slide show of our weekend...

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Father's Day Weekend

This Father's Day was a hard one.  Not only was it the first Father's Day without Dad, but Mom's birthday fell on the same day this year.  We decided to all go camping and went to Bastrop State Park.  Even though there were some moments of sadness, all in all it was a great trip for everyone!  Lots of relaxing on the part of the girls and younger ones and lots of golf on the part of the boys.  Jeremy even set us up with an outdoor movie theatre!

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6th grade Camping Trip

Jeremy's 6th grade class went for an overnight camping trip to Huntsville State Park. Codey got to tag along and all of the kids had a great time. They had fun and did some educational stuff as well so all-in-all it was a fun two days!!




Sixth grade class of 2010...

Dinosaur Valley State Park

Back in July we went to Dinosaur Valley State Park and had a blast!!  We didn't have enough time to take everything in and are definetly planning on returning again.  There was so much to do and see that we can't list everything.   Tristan even got to come along with us.  It was so much fun having him along!  Here is a slideshow of all the fun!

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We did visit the nearby Creation Evidence Museum and we even got to hear a lecture on Intelligent Design about "Horses". This was right up my kids alley as Brogan and Christian love horses. It was a very interesting place with lots of great displays. It rained on us most of the time we were there. The first day we didn't find many tracks and had planned on going to look again in the following days but the rain started and when it did it didn't let up. The next few days we couldn't see any tracks because the river was flowing like mad. We went to a talk about the dinosaurs that are thought to have travelled across Texas and that was really neat for the kids since they could link the tracks they were seeing to actual dinosaurs that walked through here.  We can't wait to go back to see more!

 

{Yes, I am just now getting this one up.  It took me forever to get it downloaded then uploaded because of our internet connection but I promised myself I would get it done before the end of the year and I did.  Yeah ME!!}

Caddo Lake State Park

We went to Caddo Lake State Park back in August and had a great time.  There wasn't a whole lot to do there but we had fun just hanging out and taking in the town.  We also learned a lot about bats, the kids had a blast riding their bikes around the circle that we were on and we took an hour long tour of the lake which was very neat.  I am just now getting the pictures up but they are well worth the wait!

 

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Huntsville State Park

We took our first camping trip in our new pop-up this week and it made it home without tearing anything, or anyone, up!

We ventured for a one night stay to our very own Huntsville State Park. We didn't do much but hang out and have fun since we where there such a short time but we got the idea of what camping with 7 people in such a small space will be like. Which isn't actually half bad! It did rain on us not to long after we got there which should have been no surprise. I mean we haven't had rain in 2 months and a burn ban is in effect so it was pretty much a no brainer that we would get rained on right? Kicker...it didn't rain at our house!! At least we know the pop-up doesn't have any leaks! :) Needless to say we had a good time and can't wait for our two scheduled camping trips later this summer. State Parks, here we come!!!

On our way...We had two friends with us so that made 9 in the pop-up!

Here we are...

Setting up...

Doing the "Funky Cold Medina". We made lemonade in a big container before we left so everyone could fill up their water bottles while camping. Jeremy told the kids that before they got anything to drink they had to say "Can I please have some of that Funky Cold Medina?" Really loud and do a dance to go along with it. They thought it was silly at first but they all did it each time and started to have a lot of fun with it. Here is Brogan doing her dance before she gets something to drink...

Joshua found this tree with a little hump in it. He wanted me to take a picture of him on his perfect stool. Once he saw the picture he said that he should have put his hands in the air so that it didn't look like he was holding on. For the record, he wasn't, he was just perched up there.

Doing skits...

Visiting the Nature Center...

For dinner we had hamburgers and these yummy french fries. We made them from potatos right out of our garden. They were so good!

Coming back from a hike and just hanging out...

One last picture before we pack up...By the way, it started to rain as we packed up, and NO, we didn't get any of that rain at our house either!