Springtime!

Our weather is finally getting nice after an unusually cold springtime around here. So, the last few weekends we've been getting out and taking Christian "exploring". We're very fortunate to live very close (withing walking distance) to an awesome park in Fairfax county called Lake Accotink. In addition to a playground, mini-golf and an old time carousel it has some great hiking trails that go all around the lake. You can also rent three different kinds of boats; row boats, canoes and pedal boats. One weekend we spent a Saturday afternoon just hiking along the trails. We brought a snack and stopped along the way and took a break.

Christian, like most boys is very fond of sticks and rocks and...

bugs!!!! He was facinated by these piles of caterpillars climbing on the trees so I let him take a few pictures.


We also met a very interesting older woman hiking who stopped to talk to Christian about the caterpillars. She asked him if he like turtles and when he told her he did, she told him he should go down near the water's edge and look for them on the fallen logs in the water. She said there are usually lots of them sunning themselves in the afternoon. We ventured down near the water in a few different spots but no turtles to be found.

This past weekend we headed back to the lake and this time we rented a row boat and went for an adventure on the water.

We saw some geese. This one in particular seemed to be following us wherever we would row. I told Christian he was probably hoping we'd toss him some food.

We also saw this awesome crane. We tried to get as close as we could but this is as far as we got before he flew away.

We also finally saw some of those turtles that lady told us about and there were a bunch of them. They're pretty far away in this picture but there are seven of them here.

Christian loved being out in the boat. We weren't too sure if it would freak him out or not but he thought it was great. Next time he says he wants to get one of the pedal boats so he can sit in the middle and steer. Maybe this weekend if the weather is good.