Fairfield State Park

On April 12-15, 2011 we went and camped at Fairfield State Park! We originally planned a birthday party for Alyssa on Saturday April 15th at our house, it when we discovered so many friends had conflicts that weekend and could not make it we decided to change plans and do a camping trip. We picked Fairfield State Park because it was right at the halfway point between my parents and Daniel's. They all came down to the campsite on Saturday to have a birthday party there!

Fairfield State Park is a beautiful wooded park! It was quite big! We were able to get a nice big pull through spot right on the water's edge.

Here are some pics of our campsite.

Thursday night we cooked on an oak campfire!! We had chicken that was wrapped around cream cheese and jalapeño (no peppers on kids'), then wrapped in bacon, some grilled corn and baked beans! It was super yummy!!




We are facing west on the lake so we were able to enjoy a beautiful sunset!!

We also enjoyed some s'mores!!!

Friday morning we had a foil pack breakfast. We put in each pack a frozen hash brown patty, 2 eggs scrambled, and 2 frozen sausage patties. We wrapped them up and cooked them on the propane grill!! They were very tasty.







We played around the camper all morning. PaPa came down to bring the boys bicycle helmets since they had forgotten them. We had visiting and having lunch with him.

After he left we decided to go on a nature walk.

When we were in the drought last year, and the lake got low, the grass really grew up and then the lake filled up again. But they haven't mowed the grass (the park really needs to have some maintenance done). So it did no good to sit in the benches...the grass in front of them was taller than the bench!

Here was Seth having fun on a stump!

Look at this hairy thing that I found! YIKES!! Alyssa and I took our time walking and trying to find as many nature things as we could. The boys seemed to always be way ahead of us. I guess they didn't like looking at nature as much as us.

Here's another nature thing we found - some cool mushrooms.

Seth did find some raccoon tracks though!

When we came to the end of the track we realized that we made a loop around...and also realized that we just walked a 2 mile nature walk!! GO KIDS!!! They did great!!

When we got back to the camper Daddy and Alyssa took a 2 hour nap! While they were napping the boys played outside and I baked cookies for Alyssa's "party" the next day and read my book!! It was such a peaceful time!!!!

After the naps we decided to take the kids swimming. We were excited to be the only ones there (since the only place you really could swim at this park was the designated swimming area...no running creeks to jump in here).

So that we wouldn't have wet kids in the truck on the way back to the site I had them take off their underwear and shirts and just swim in their shorts (that way when we were done they could take off the wet shorts and ride back in their dry shirts and underwear!) Even Alyssa was topless - LOL!!! But they had a ball!

Also that day we saw this cool tree that was in a wash out area!! Look at all those roots!!

Here was Friday night's beautiful sunset!

Saturday morning when we realized we still had some time before the family got there for the "party" we decided to check out another trail. This time we went to the bird watching trail. It was a lot shorter than Friday's but it was still a neat trail.

After the trail we came back and everyone showed up to celebrate Alyssa's 3rd birthday!! Of course she picked out her cake - she wanted a pink cake with pink icing. We put princess candies and magic wand candles on it as well.

The kids had fun playing in our sun shade tent.

Everyone had fun visiting.

Alyssa got her first bike from MiMi and Poppy! She was so excited...but still has not gotten down the concept of pedaling.

The boys talked and shared stories ALL day! I think Aaron thought Joey talked a little bit too much though. LOL!

We also got in a little bit of fishing time.

Man Daniel got some good use out of his grill this weekend!! We grilled almost every meal this trip!! He is a grill master!! :-)

It was a very fun weekend! Fairfield State Park is a very nice park. The sites are all good sites. We feel though that there needs to be some maintenance and clean up done - lots of tall tall grass and lots of dead trees). But we decided we would go back - especially if we wanted to do a "meet-up" of the families because it is about the same distance for everyone to get there!

Until next time,
Kellie

Meridian State Park (with a Dinosaur Field Trip)

(ok I noticed I forgot another trip on here...our trip to Lake Grapevine...I will post about that after this one)

This past weekend we went to Meridian State Park. I was the field trip coordinator for our homeschool group for the month of March and planned a trip for the group to go to Dinosaur World and Dinosaur Valley State Park. We decided to make a camping weekend out of it for my family. We tried to get into Dinosaur Valley but they were already booked up so we decided to go to Meridian State Park. It was only 30 minutes away from Glen Rose and was the state park that Daniel grew up going to so he knew it quite well!

I must say it was a small park but it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! So far this has been our favorite spot! I didn't get a picture of our actual camping spot with the RV. This park only has 8 spots that fit our size RV but they are all pull through spots and all have full hook up!! (at $20 a night it was a STEAL!)

We got in late Thursday morning and got set up. Daniel has to go to Ft Worth for a business meeting he could not get out of. The kids and I went on a walk on one of the nature trails and then we had some friends from our group that were staying at Dinosaur Valley come out and have some fun with us that afternoon! Here are pictures from that fun day!!

Here are pictures from the nature walk!! Man the bluebonnets were out and were beautiful and smelled so sweet!!








Here are pictures from our fun time with our friend! The park ranger had told us about a creek that would be a fun spot for the kids to play in. And boy was it! We told them to only wade in the water, but it didn't take long before they were soaked from head to toe!















I just have to share this picture of Alyssa and I from Friday morning. We had a fun time snuggling on the couch before we faced our big day of fun!!







We met our homeschool group at Dinosaur World in Glen Rose, TX. We had about 40 kids and 30 adults attend and it was a blast!!!

The kids had fun digging for fossils! Aaron was so proud of the ones he found!! (He is my dinosaur lover you know!)







Some cute pics of the kids with the dinosaur statues.






We also enjoyed our picnic lunch there and the kids had fun on the neat playground.

From there we went to Dinosaur Valley State Park. We went to the area that has a creek you can cross to see dinosaur tracks on the other side. We have done this several times before but this was the highest I have ever seen the water at this point (which makes it even stranger to believe we were in a drought last year). Still everyone had fun making the crossing to see the tracks.










After the field trip some friends came out to the camper and we grilled out steaks and made smores!! YUM!!!









Friday night the kids were pretty puckered out! After their baths they crawled in their beds and watched Wall-E.







You can see in the pictures the storage boxes on their beds. We came up with this idea after our last trip! We were trying to figure out ways to expand our storage and came up with the idea of getting them their own boxes to keep their clothes, toys, etc... we figured since the beds were 6 ft long or so (same length as twin beds) that it would be a few years before they filled up the whole bed and so there was some extra space on the ends. I have to say this worked out soooo well!!! This opened up storage where we were having to keep their stuff and this also helped to keep things off the floor because we made sure it was understood their stuff was suppose to stay in their box!

On Saturday Daniel's parents and brother came out and spent the last day out there with us. It was fun hearing of their many memories of staying there. We had fun walking some of the trails and found the wash-out cave that Daniel loved to play in as a child! It was a perfect ending to a perfect weekend!













The last picture is a nice view of Lake Meridian!!

I am SOOO READY for our next long trip in the RV!!

Until next time,
Kellie