Who lives in the Pond?

Last month, Henry and I went to a GREAT program just for preschoolers at the Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area. We both enjoyed it!

The teacher, Ms. Bridget, began by telling the kids a little about ponds and all the creatures and plants that live there.


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Henry listened attentively.


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Then she explained the procedure for looking at the pond samples, and got a little sampling for everyone.


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Great hands-on activity!

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Then we used this field guide to identify the different things in the pond.


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That little jelly bean looking thing is a sac of snail eggs.


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Then we went for a nature walk.

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I think there had been some items strategically placed on the trail.

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Each child had been given a shape and a color to identify on the trail. Henry found his pentagon in the snail's shell.

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Snake Skin

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Beaver Skull

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Our First Tent Camping Experience

We promised the boys that as soon as Henry was out of diapers, we would go tent camping. So he has been out of diapers since last August. In October, it finally cooled off enough, so we practiced by sleeping in the tent in the backyard. I thought it would be best if we tried it at home first so that we had as few surprises as possible when it was time to actually go to bed. It was in the mid 50s that night, and we realized that they would need warm pjs, hats, socks, etc for that weather. It was a worthwhile experiment, I think. This is actually my first time to ever tent camp, too.

We planned to do a two-day camp on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Then we had a cold snap forecast for that weekend - the low on Friday night was going to be 19! We decided that was just not doable, so we had two devastated little boys when we canceled.

It is now starting to be mild again here, so we planned to go last weekend, which was the first weekend of Spring Break. Then I had an unforeseen family emergency in Louisiana, so I had to go to Louisiana over that weekend.

Finally, this weekend looked like perfect weather and all the stars aligned, and we finally went. The boys were, of course, very excited. We were able to get a reservation at Ray Roberts Lake State Park Isle du Bois Unit, which had been full for both of our other attempts. It was meant to be!


We left here at about 12:30 on Sat morning and headed that way. There weren't many spots left when we arrived, but we were very pleased with the one we ended up with. It seemed like any of them would have been fine. We stayed at #91....giving lots of details for my future reference.


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We kept saying that this first weekend was going to be a learning experience, and I quickly discovered the first note to go on my list. After setting up camp, there needs to be a nice appetizer tray and a beverage to celebrate all the gathering, grocery shopping, packing, arriving, and now finally getting it all set up. We had a big bag of trail mix, but it just did not cut it!

Within the first hour, Leo needed the first aid kit.


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Right before we left our house, I noticed that it said on our confirmation that there was a burn ban. Such a bummer. We could only use propane or charcoal - no wood fires. So we grilled our hot dogs and sausages over charcoal in the fire pit. It was OK, but you can't beat a wood fire.


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After dinner, I did the dishes.


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There was A LOT of playing in dirt. We also had a hard time keeping them out of the ashes in the fire pit.


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Leo used the camera after dinner. He started with some family shots.


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Henry took one...

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The camping area was actually a loop, so that was very convenient for Leo to have a little freedom and go for a ride. He took the camera and went exploring for a little bit.

Lots of the campsites had Texas flags. Leo said we need one. This site actually had the Texas and US flags.


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A picture of the lake.

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I think this is an underwater shot.

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Picture of the map.

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They put some glow sticks on their ankles and enjoyed running around when it got dark.

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We used our new Pie Irons that Aunt Carolyn gave us for Christmas to have little cherry pies before bed. They were great. Also nice that the kids could just stick them right in the fire and let them cook.


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To Be Continued....