Big Bend - Part 2

So here are the rest of my favorite pictures from our vacation. Day 1 we headed to the Chisos Mountains and hiked 2 miles through the mountains. It was so beautiful. It got a little chilly as we made it to the top. Taylor's favorite part was Abe giving her his hoodie to wear. The arms hung down so far that she looked like an ape. Everyone that passed her laughed as they realized she was hiding in the hoodie. She liked all the attention. Surprisingly there had been snow the week before in the mountains so a little was still left on the ground. So we had our first Texas snowball fight. The kids thought it was so fun. But we were happy that it was gone by the time we got there and we had beautiful weather every day.

I'm okay if this is only snow we see this winter (or for the next several winters).

We had picnics each day for lunch while we were out and about. I never expected the park to be so big that we would need to pack our lunch before we left each morning.

Abe did a great job fixing some tinfoil dinners one night. This is one step above just doing hot dogs like we normally do. The smores were eaten too quickly to get any pictures of them. Ethan was completely obsessed with meeting people and inviting them over for smores. I have no idea why but he was on a mission. He had grand plans of putting together invitations and mailing them out to people at the different campsites. We did get lucky that in the next campsite over there was a little girl a few years older than Ethan. He invited her over to play and quickly invited her over for smores that evening. She was actually really excited because her family had not brought any smore fixings because they thought there were no fires allowed because of the dry weather. The kids were really bummed that the family was leaving the next day and they didn't find any other kids to hang out with.

We were a little disappointed that we didn't see any of the parks' mountain lion or bear population (okay maybe we weren't that disappointed) but it was fun to see a lot of different animals running around. We saw some javalina at several different places (thankfully we were in the car since they aren't known for being all that friendly). We also had a coyote come through the campsite one afternoon. We also managed to see some roadrunners, deer, a rabbit, and a golden eagle. One afternoon we were sitting by the trailer while the kids played in the dirt and a small bird came very close to them and was watching them looking for food. The kids didn't know what to think of this bird that was approaching them so they all just stood and starred at each other for a long time without moving. We were a good distance away watching and the kids kept glancing back with a confused looked, not sure what to do. Finally Taylor turns around and yells, "We aren't going to touch that bird cause it has a big pecker!" Of course it did have a large beak but her word choice cracked us up.

It was so wonderful to finish up a vacation not exhausted and ready to be home but rather feeling so blessed at the little family we have and special time that we spend together. I'm already thinking about the next adventure. Anyone that wants to join us for some camping near the beach in the spring let me know!