Family vacations are fun!

Yes we did it. Rented the RV and hit the Texas state parks last week. Despite the fact that I was sick the first couple of days (including on Thanksgiving the day before we left - great), Grace was sick in the middle of the trip and Alex picked it up at the end, we had a great time. Had to patronize WalMart twice and discovered that the stores in small towns are much nicer than the ones in DFW. Stayed at Ft. Parker near Mexia the first night simply because just about every other park in the state was booked the Friday after Thanksgiving. Then two nights in Garner State Park and two nights at Pedernales Falls SP. We were going to spend a night at Dinosaur Valley SP, but decided to just make that a stop on the way home after having two sick kids for the past few days and realizing the cold front was coming in that night. Originally planned on reaching Big Bend, but changed our route after the first night when we realized we wanted more park time and less drive time.

Our sweet ride.

Alex adopted this weird stance for a while when throwing
rocks into the river at Garner SP.

Grace said "Throwing rocks in the river is more
fun than...ANYTHING! Even Coloring!"

Checking out the recently deceased butterfly next to one of the
biggest trees we'd ever seen (Garner SP).

The butterfly.


Helping Alex navigate the rocks at Pedernales Falls SP
(to get to a good spot to toss them into the river, of course).


Not only could we throw rocks, but we could stick our
feet in this river while we did it.


Helping Grace cross back across.


Grace shows off hers (and my) bedroom. Alex and Jim shared the
MUCH more comfortable bed in the back.


Alex and the smudges he helped decorate the entire RV with.


A sunset at Pedernales Falls.


Me watching the deer roaming through our campsite. Not much fear in those guys until you really make a lot of noise. We also saw feral pigs (from a distance - about 4 adults and a mess of babies), rabbits and numerous cool birds. That was the live animals. If you count the roadkill you can add a lot of raccoons to that number - there was a stretch of road from Garner to Pedernales Falls where we saw one probably every two miles.


Picture of the family taken the last night using the camera on the computer.