Our Saturday Adventure

Saturday, October 13:  Emma set the table for our dinner today. She saw that I had "fall" flowers, so instead of using our usual "beach" plates, she chose our plain white so as not to clash with the centerpiece. She chose appropriately colored (and themed) glassware (!!), and we were all set to eat. I love so much that Emma enjoys doing this.

 It has been awhile since we have taken a "Saturday Adventure" and since it was long past due, I hooked these guys into one. You see, I discovered a park just the other day that I didn't even know was SO close to my house ... AND ... it has a hiking TRAIL ... AND it runs along the Rogue River! Oh my! How DID I miss it all of these years?!?!

 Anyway, for some reason I was hesitant to explore it alone the other day when I stumbled upon it, so I told the kiddos about it and they were actually enthused to come with me. Thank you, kids!

 Above, they are searching for flat stones to skip in the river. After a few tries, Emma got a rock to skip 3x. I told her my brother, Kevin, was an expert at skipping stones. She was not surprised to hear it. I can remember Kevin standing by a river bank getting rocks to skip 7 or 8x even. I never was very good at it personally.

 It was a gorgeous day--I should tell you where on earth we had our adventure! Rogue River Park and the Rogue River Trail.

 I took quite a few pictures (naturally) and I'm posting the best of them for you to see.

 It turns out that Rogue River Trail goes right out to the DNR Fishery where there is a minnow pond that is used to feed the Walleye pond ...

 It was a curious site--I had never seen anything quite like it. I can't say it was beautiful, but it was certainly interesting.

 We walked around the ponds. There were a few heron out there, but I couldn't get a good shot at them because they were too far away.

 I love these pictures of the kids walking in the woods. To me, it is a little taste of heaven. I listen to their laughter, and my heart rejoices. I'm delighted to watch them discover the beauty God has created all around us. I love to breathe the fresh air. I love each tree! And the colors were delicious ... yes, they were yummy.

 I love to be with the children outside, away from technology ... just US. It's quiet. It's REAL.

 See how gorgeous it is?

 We only got lost a few times out here. I am always (yes, always) inclined to take any tiny side path--there might be a great picture waiting to be taken!--and so I get distracted and turned around. I do love being lost in the woods.

 And the children were so patient with me. They know all about my oddities and put up with them. It's nice to be loved, isn't it?

 I did complain to them, however, that I was tired of taking pictures of their back sides. So Emma tried to gather them about so that I could take a decent front shot of them. This was our best effort.

 There is an OK playground near the parking lot. We promised Kaity that she could play here once our hike was finished; so we stayed true to our word!

Afterwards, we came back to the beach house where Emma taught us a new card game called, "Trash." It was so much fun. Kaity did a good job learning the game, but it was rather long, so she gave up ... which was OK because it was time for Bible story. We continued on and learned more about King David from 2 Samuel. We learned some really positive things about David this week--how kind he was to Mephibosheth, how kind he was to the son of an Ammonite king who had died (who did NOT pay him back in kind), how God had blessed David with everything he touched! But then we also learned a very sad story about David, about how it's never too late to completely mess up your life when you turn away from God and think only of yourself. It was such a good time with the kids talking about what sin does, not only to us, but to our families. We also talked about sin in our own lives and how wonderful it is to be forgiven and cleansed from sin through Jesus. 

THEN we made some ice cream slushies and ate a bunch of cookies .... and it was time to return the grandchildren back to their house. Very thankful tonight for all of this. God is so kind with His blessings, isn't He?