Snack Sized Fun: A memorable Memorial Day

I'm sure this will be a long one...it was quite a long day. Fun, but long.

I felt like today was the real kick off to what will hopefully be a fun-filled (albeit short) summer vacation for my kids. I have big plans for almost every day they are off track and I was so excited to get started with our first family hike of the year. I prepared our picnic lunch last night and got the kids clothes all set out and the camelbacks out and ready. We went on a walk after dinner yesterday and encountered our first little snag--the girls' tennis shoes were too small. I thought it would be no big deal to stop by Wal-mart on our way out of town and grab some in the morning. I wanted to get an early start so we would be able to get back and have a lot of quality backyard remodeling time.

We were all loaded up and ready to go by 8:30 am. Then the car wouldn't start. Ryan tested the battery and sure enough it was dead. So we jumped it and headed straight to Wal-mart, where Ryan took out the old one and went and bought and installed the new one while we got the girls' new shoes. After filling up with gas we were on our way again. 9:30 am. Not quite as early as I had hoped, but still okay.

From the description I read, I didn't think it would take us more than 45 minutes to get there. Wrong. Maybe it would have taken us 45 minutes to get to the 8.5 mile dirt road that then took us 35 minutes to drive. Maybe. But we had to wait for a train. Oh well. And then there was the problem of a seriously misleading set of signs that had us wandering aimlessly on hot, dusty ATV trails, jumping out of the way of motorcross maniacs at every turn for about an hour and a half. I do take comfort in the fact that there were two other families out there just as confused as we were. We really almost gave up, but after a bathroom break and a picnic lunch, we decided to drive even further down the awful dirt road to see if we could somehow find the elusive trailhead. And finally we found it--even though we had to drive right past a sign that read, "No trail access beyond this point." Seriously misleading. And annoying.

Here we are...looking for the trail.

Still looking for the trail...

And yes, still looking for the trail...

Well, by this point we were tired and dirty and sweaty but not about to turn back. We started up the 1.5 mile trail to Devil's Head Lookout tower. And it was UP. Pretty steep the whole way up. The kids were troopers though, and we made it. The lookout tower was originally built in 1918 and it is still used as a fire lookout tower today. So once we got to the top of the mountain, we encountered a daunting metal staircase that led all the way up to the tower. Lincoln wanted to climb it by himself, so he did--even though it started making me seriously nervous the higher we got. At the very top we got some incredible views of all the surrounding mountain ranges and met the nice fire lookout man who has been looking out for fires there for the past 26 years. He even gave us little cards to prove that we had made the climb.

We randomly found snow halfway up, so the girls made quick little snowmen.

Up we go!

We made it to the top!

One of the views.

Back down we went--luckily going down is much faster. We got back into town just in time to hit the showers and rush over (with wet hair) to our friends' house for a Memorial Day BBQ. We had a wonderful time--the food and company were great and the weather was perfect. The kids had a ton of fun--I can't even believe they had the energy to play as hard as they did. We came home late (for them) and got them to bed.

Ryan went outside to take down our American flag and as he did he noticed four brand new baby bunnies in our planter. I'm obsessed with these little guys who grace us with their presence every year--but these are the tiniest ones I have seen to date (except for those ones I saw being born last year--but those weren't at all cute.) Anyway, I just had to include a few pictures, which the bunnies sat so perfectly still for, I swear I almost reached out and grabbed one. They are so cute I just want to pet them. And I have checked our garden multiple times daily and never seen any bunnies, big or little, in it, so hopefully they will leave it alone!

There are three little ones in this picture...