Adventure Is Out There

We went looking for adventure, so we decided to hike the trails at Castlewood State Park.  I told the kids that when Shawn got back from his week long trip to New Jersey we would go there.  It gave us something to look forward to.  The hike was GORGEOUS!!  Some things we discovered on our hike:

1. 3 lizards, one a blue tailed

2. A large snake…Anna actually saw this slither into the woods.  She kept saying how large it was.  Sure enough, we saw a dust print it had made on the ground, and it was LARGE.  A man told us there that he saw several large ones down by the water on his last trip there.

3. Cody and Anna discovered what a sweat bee sting feels like.  Anna got stung once, Cody three times.  Cody likes to tell the story how he told us that it felt like something was stinging him in his shirt.  I tried to help him find it, but Shawn kept telling him it was nothing.  Shawn had to eat his words when a sweat bee flew right out from under Cody’s shirt.  Cody laughs about that, and Cody can now say he has officially had his first ever sting.  I think every childhood has to have at least one good bee sting story.  Cody and Anna handled it like troopers!

4. Cody and Anna both wanted to document their hikes.  They took their own cameras to take photos.  Cody also brought a field journal to write down his discoveries.  I am pretty sure “beware of sweat bees and snakes” is in there!

Shawn and I would love to go there again in the fall.  I bet it is so beautiful at that time of year.  I loved looking over the cliff with the kids and seeing the vast amount of beauty spread before us.  The words to Phillips, Craig, and Dean’s song comes to mind, “You’re the only God whose power none can contend.  You’re the only God whose name and praise will never end.  You’re the only God whose worthy of everything I can give.  You are God…and that’s just the way it is.”  I love the simple truth in these words.

Adventure is out there!