Late Summer Fun...

Today was a beautiful pre-fall day! I couldn't justify just hanging out at home today even though the lawn reaaaallly needs to be mowed. So, we ditched our responsibilities around the house today - of course they'll still be here tomorrow - and we headed out to the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. Considering that it's less than 30 minutes from our driveway, I don't know why we've never been... but we will be going back! The kids were excellent and even set out and walked a 1.5 mile trail with us. We got to see nutria, frogs, turtles, herons, ducks, river otters and all sorts of other waterfowl. It was just great weather, a totally different outing for the kids and a surprise for them since we didn't tell them where we were headed.

We've been trying to make an effort to get all four of us in photos when we go places. We have way too many shots of us looking like single parents!

I love. love. love this picture!

Setting out on the 1.2 mile Kiwa Trail loop...

We found this little guy fishing...

Along the trail, Karleigh pulled out her great impression of Lewis and Clark - actually, she was just excited to see her daddy and brother coming around the bend!

Wildlife refuge, Britney style!

After Rylan enjoyed his little snooze and we moved him back to his car seat, we drove around to the other side of the refuge. This side has the Cathlapotle cedar plankhouse which is a replica of the houses that Lewis and Clark reported seeing during their travels. Kind of cool! Apparently, when visitors called, they would leave their things outside the hole in the wall, which was used as the door, and if they weren't wanted then they were "easy to bonk on the head when they tried to stick their head in..."

Lucky for us, no one bonked us on the head and we were able to go inside and see how the plankhouse was constructed and it smelled so good too! They also had various pelts for the kids to feel, rock tools, arrow heads, spear heads, and cat tail mats and ropes.

I'm pretty sure that the wheel barrows in this photo aren't authentic... actually, they're getting ready to put a cedar plank floor in and they've been working on removing all the gravel that currently makes up the floor. Karleigh was very impressed with the size of this old oak tree. I was too!

To top it off, in order to get to the refuge, you have to cross three sets of very active train tracks. To get to the plankhouse, you get to take a foot bride that crosses over the tracks. Rylan asked if we could wait for a train on the bridge. We had already seen and/or heard 5 trains during the afternoon so we told him that we would try. I would say we waited less than 10 minutes and then we got this look:

Here comes the train!!! Rylan was so excited, the engineer waved out his window as he headed straight under us. Rylan went to bed talking about the big yellow train! (BNSF)

All in all a great day! A little whining (from the kids) about 3/4 of a mile into the "hike" but it was hot by that time of the afternoon. I really could have done without hearing the same IVF commercial no less than 5 times on the radio. It just seems that even when I'm doing something and my mind should be mostly off those matters, they have a way of working in anyway. But if that's my only complaint, I consider this day a total success!!!