Lake Day!

Today was gorgeous, and we drove up to Hungry Mother State Park, in Virginia! There were very few other people there (maybe Virginia schools have started?) and it was lovely! 

The kids pooled their money and bought this excellent sand bucket!

And Ed surprised us by renting a paddle boat! We've talked about it, but now the kids are finally big enough to be useful "paddlers!"

The duck. Travis was very fond of this duck, and we followed it a long way up the lake!

The beach from the paddle boat.

Travis turning Katie into sand art.

She wanted to be a mermaid, but she wound up looking more like a turkey drumstick.

Me. It was a bit chilly by my (Floridian) standards. But that's why God gave us flannel.

We had a great time, and I think I've talked Ed into maybe taking us back next week!

And this is a drawing Katie made last week. We've been reading and discussing The Lord of the Rings. This is Treebeard holding Merry (or maybe Pippin, but probably Merry because Katie favors Pippin.). In the book he mentions that he initially took them for orcs and might have "trodden on them" if he hadn't realized they were not, but in Katie's version he has decided to squeeze the little orc's juices out into his goblet.