Camping...Days 3 & 4

There were Daddy Long Legs all over the place, and our kids were fascinated with them. I guess I'd rather have those than mosquitoes (which we had none of!).

Owen and Sophie kept checking on the ones under our table.

On Saturday morning, we took a guided nature hike. Our guide pointed out various flora and fauna. Owen lagged a bit behind.

Sophie loved to touch anything she was given permission to touch. This was something from the mint family.

Owen was eventually carried by either Greg or I.

On this hike, we learned about "black caps," a wild, tiny raspberry-like fruit that grows in the park. We decided to pick a bunch and cook them in campfire pies with our pie irons. (I thought we took pictures of those, but I'm not finding any of them.) They turned out really tasty!

Owen liked helping pick the berries.

So did Sophie...the helmet was because we had ridden our bikes there.

The following day, we visited a nearby beach before heading for home. It was the last day and finally warm enough for swimming.

Greg was a little creeped out about swimming in the Mississippi, so he didn't venture in very far.

But the kids had fun playing in the sand. Here, Sophie is watering the rocks.

On our way home, Owen fell asleep before we even left the parking lot at the beach. Sophie even fell asleep too for a while (yeah!). We had a really nice weekend together and didn't have too many mishaps while doing it all on our own for the first time. Although, I did neglect to bring more paper plates (we had about 6 for the whole weekend, so we just had to wash real dishes after that), my makeup, brush, & hairdryer (which I can live without while camping, but it was annoying to have non-intentionally forgotten), and the appropriate jeans (I grabbed the ones at the bottom of my jean pile, not realizing they were my painting jeans which are a bit snug. I survived, and perhaps they kept me from eating too much as I had to wear them basically the entire cold weekend!).