Since our last camping trip went pretty well, I thought we should try it again for Thanksgiving break.
These kids are at the point where they don’t seem to mind road trips all that much, so it really opens up further possibilities! I really wanted to book our old favorite in Arkansas, Ouachita State Park, but the cabins were all booked up. But there was another state park in Arkansas that had open cabins, so we decided to try something new. Off to Moro Bay State Park we went!
Also my friend got this extra Katz hat for me since I introduced him to their awesome coffee. But Henry decided he liked it more than I did and stole it. He doesn’t even drink coffee… :(
All these electronic devices might be why they travel so well these days… Also I was smart enough to break the trip up a little and we stayed at a hotel the first night to check out Nacogdoches, TX.
Someone is ready to get out and explore! She loves to put these sunglasses for photos, but they don’t stay on long once we are outside. Looks pretty adorable though, doesn’t she??
We were riding bikes trails around in one of the city parks when Matt had a blow-out on one of his tires. We weren’t very close to the truck, so he told us he would walk back and to just keep going without him. We aren’t the most loving family, because I don’t think we even hesitated to leave him - lol.
But we did stop at all the cool things we saw and sent him photos. So he could live vicariously though the images? ;)
Henry insisted we stop at the bridge where Matt’s tire blew out on the way back to the truck. He just wanted to send his dad one more photo of the “crime scene”.
Finally made it to the cabin and the kids were delighted to discover there was wi-fi at this cabin. Definitely their new favorite “roughing it” location.
Ok, I can’t judge too much - the cabin also had cable. Which is how Thomas and I discovered our new favorite show to watch was about aviation disasters.
And morning cartoons! I promise we did leave the cabin to experience the great outdoors, but we really did love the upgrade from the empty box cabin we had at Martin Dies.
Plus it was super cool looking with the elevated view of the lake.
Finally out of the cabin and enjoying the awesome weather!
Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve been ordering almost all of our groceries online - even when trying to buy in bulk from places like Costco. Above you can see, the giant box of applesauce we ordered.
Confused?
So was I when I opened the delivery box and they had sent us a giant Jenga set instead… But there’s no reason not to play with it when the whims of the grocery gremlins send it your way? ;)
This was the first time we had actually played with it and everyone was concentrating on winning!
It started to get so wobbly at the end! Thomas ended up being the one to finally knock it down, but at that point it could have been a strong breeze that took it out. Definitely a fun upgrade to normal sized Jenga!
Currently there is a bridge across the Ouachita River, but these ferries were in service off and on from the early 1800’s to 1992! Since it’s fairly recent that it went out of service, all the the “Wait here for Ferry” signs are still posted in the park.
Hiking time! As most kids do when hiking, Henry found himself a nice hiking stick.
Natalie, on the other hand, found a cat. This girl loooooooves cats and saw this guy in the park before we went hiking. And this cat must love Natalie because he followed us from a close distance the whole time we were hiking!
Natalie was up and ready for action while the boys were still being sleepy bums this morning. She the two of us ate breakfast and walked down to the park store. She got a park T-shirt and picked out some small toys for her brothers. You have to go with mom to get the best souvenirs. ;)
Back on the road! We were headed to see both sets of grandparents since neither one of them has gotten nearly enough grandkid time this year. And even though things are getting better, not every place is fully open to people - thus the Chicken Express being eaten in the truck.
But I can’t blame 2020 weirdness for Henry’s expression, he’s been weird since 2014. ;)
Grannie had this ribbon toy and the boys had so much fun running around the yard twirling it! They were competing to see who could get the best circle - because with sibling, everything is a competition!
I am not going to pick a winner on circle making, but if I were forced into picking my favorite photo - this one of Thomas cracks me up! He was trying so hard to make it look like this was effortless, but didn’t quite nail that look. ;)
Made it over to my parent’s house and they immediately put the kids to work!
There were some complaints from the little kids about how hard it was to dig the holes to plant Nonni’s flowers, so my dad stepped in to make it a little easier. ;)
Mom was showing me all the plants they had growing this year and we discovered that Natalie loves eating tomatoes off the plants. She left the big ones alone, but none of the little red tomatoes were safe!
She was then convinced she was big and strong enough to ride the Green Machine on her own. Not quite, my little warrior…
It’s not like she is deprived, you can see we brought her other two bikes along on the trip!
She finally gave up on the Green Machine and rode all over the place with her balance bike. She definitely still prefers it over her new pedal bike. She’s just so fast on this one without pedals that she’s not patient enough to learn how to go equally as fast on the pink one.
But don’t worry, she still got some Green Machine fun with her brother! I honestly didn’t think Henry volunteering to ride her around would go over so well, but you can see she was having a blast riding with him, despite maybe being a little smushed in there.
It was a great week away from work/school and so nice to spend time outdoors and with family. Hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving break as well!