The Girls

As we have been anxiously awaiting the warmer weather and preparing for spring camping, it is also time to prepare for Spring at home.  The gardens have all been prepped.  Cool weather seeds are planted and the chicken house is being built.  Yes, the chicken house.  These are three of our 6 six girls at just a few days old.  The breeder just sent me the pictures.  Shortly after Easter, 6 six week old Buff Orpington hens will be coming to live with us.  We cannot wait.  I am sure a new blog devoted to these funny little girls will be in order next. 

I will post pictures soon of the progress being made on their playhouse, but I couldn't resist sharing these cute things.

Sequoyah State Park for GII's Birthday

G's wish for his birthday this year- I want to go camping and have birthday dinner at the campout.  So away we went.  Nothing like trying to predict weather in late-February.  It was warm and pleasant all week, then  rained off and on and temperatures hovered in the low 50's all day Saturday.  Only a slight bummer.   We arrived in time for dinner on Friday night  about the same time Grandaddy got there.  We got set up, had some burgers and got tucked in to bed.                

It rained much of the night, but cleared out in the morning.  We had pancakes and sausage and enjoyed the campfire.  We did some exploring and bike riding until C and C and kids arrived.  It was lots of fun having the cousins around.  We took them down to the fossil trail and hunted for fossils.  We also visited one of our favorite nature centers.  The kids all enjoyed checking out all of the skulls, bones, scat, live snakes and other treasures.

I've included a couple pictures from our previous visit of the outside critters at the nature center.  It was raining this visit so we didn't get many outside pictures.  The coyote is a favorite since he lets the kids pet him.  The beaver also begs for food.  They also have an eagle, owl and two foxes.  All of the animals here have been rescued and for various reasons, cannot be put back in the wild.

Saturday night, the rain cleared long enough to make a really big fire.  We had some dutch oven jambalaya for birthday dinner followed by lots of smores.

You never can predict weather in Oklahoma...Sunday morning the sun was out and it warmed up into the mid 60's.  Oh well.  At least it was dry and warm for tear down.  Happy 10th birthday G!

Robbers Cave State Park

Robbers Cave in November is absolutely beautiful!  The leaves were in perfect color and the temperature was perfect in the 50's and 60's during the day.  We also loved how big the campsites were so we weren't just right on top of our neighbors.

Hiking is our favorite pass-time while camping and there was plenty of that here!  Even more fun are caves and giant rocks to climb! 

G is laying on Devil's Slide.  It is a giant rock that the kids climbed and then slid down like a slide.  You can see M in the background climbing through to see where this crevice goes.

The main cave has been filled in so you can't go far into it, but my spelunckers still enjoyed going in as far as they could.  There are stories about infamous bank robbers living in the rocks and caves and hiding their booty back in the early 1900's. 

 This fun crevice went all the way through and up to where the entrance to the cave is.  A little creepy crawling into the darkness, but the kids loved the adventure!

Our second favorite at big state parks are the nature centers.  Robbers Cave had a very cool one!  The rangers that worked in the center were very happy to answer lots of kid questions and happy to get some of their critters out to visit.  M loved the snake and the tree frog, well, he got a little excited while crawling all over G and had to go to the bathroom.  That was the highlight for G.

They had a huge rattlesnake that we watched for a while that was fed a mouse.  We saw the snake strike and watched as the mouse died, but didn't get to see the snake have dinner.  He did stretch his jaw and impressed us with how very big his mouth can get!

The colors and hilltop views were spectacular.  Pictures just don't do the beauty justice.  This was one of my favorite hiking places.  There was so much to see and different terrains.  We hiked through a riverbed, field, forrest, hidden ponds, hills and giant boulders. Definitely a place to visit again!