A Family Outing

Today we went to Baskin Robins Icecream for their firemans 31 cent scoop night. The line was so big that we ended up waiting for about an hour, but during that time Kenzi and Kade were able to play inside of the fire truck. Kade absolutley loved it! It will probably be the only time they will ever get to go inside a fire truck again so it was a fun outing.

The Streaker

As some of you know Seth and I have started a new fitness trend and have enrolled in a very nice upscale gym. Yesterday as we were working out during our latin fusion dance class our names were called over the P.A. system and then someone came into our class with a sign asking us to please report to the kids room right away. When we got there we discovered Kade locked up in the bathroom totally naked. Apparently the little tike really wanted to be in his birthday suit and had given the other kids a little strip show. Because of regulations the gym staff is not allowed to dress or undress children so they stuck him in the bathroom. I hope that it will not happen again!! Ive been trying to potty train him and I think that was part of his reason to get naked.......hopefully!

Ink Lake State Park

This weekend we had the opportunity to do some exploring in Texas. We settled on Ink lake, a beautiful hill country lake about 2 hours from San Antonio. We went with our friends the Checketts. They have two boys about Kenzi and Kades age so we spend alot of time with them. We left San Antonio about 9:30 a.m. and arrived at Ink lake around 11.30. We then proceeded to have a picnic on the lake. After our picnic we decided to take a hike. The hike ended up being about 3 miles and was a little hard on the younger ones but Kenzi did an awesome job of keeping up. We saw lots of wildlife including deer and turtles... thankfully no snakes! The area we hiked in has lots of granite so a lot of the trail was hiking over granite faces exactly where those Poisonous Texas Coral snakes like to cool themselves under. The hike itself was very beautiful because the ground glittered with fools good and quartz, and the soil was covered in beautiful wildflowers. After our hike we wanted to cool off so we rented canoes and took the kids out on the lake. The water was just the right temperature and felt very refreshing. Kade tried to jump in a number of times. We found an amazing secluded granite cove on our canoe trip where you could cliff dive, lay out on the rocks and sun yourself, or swim to your hearts content. We didnt have a chance to do any of those because we needed to return the canoe, but we are planning a future trip back to Ink Lake which will include a camping, a caving expeditioin, fishing, and a strawberry picking adventure. There is so much to see and do in Texas and we are really enjoying ourselves here. Ive included a couple of pictures in this post, but for more pictures of our excursion please visit the pictures and videos section of our site. Love you all!

Cibolo Creek Hike

Saturday we were able to go on a family hike to the Cibolo Creek Nature Center just outside of Boerne, Texas. The hike was about 3 miles and the kids actually hiked most of it. The day was a perfect sunny 80 degrees and the hike was beautiful. We got our first view of bald cypress trees and the water was so clear in the creek that the kids could see the fish and turtles swimming around. We also spotted a diamondback water snake and a green lizard. After our hike we went out for icecream. It was an enjoyable family outing and one that we will probably do again.

I checked out a book called 60 hikes within 60 miles of San Antonio and we hope to accomplish one every weekend before the weather gets unbearably hot and humid. (To view more of our excursion take a look at our family website under the heading pictures)

Just Getting Started

The Ethingtons are going to try to keep everyone up to date by starting a new blog. Enjoy.