Our Week in Review (Aug 6th-12th) Vacation to Lake Catherine State Park

Some day I am going to take a vacation at a hotel with room service.  Maybe when the children are all grown.  Not that we didn't have a good time, we did.  It was a wonderful trip but it was also a lot of work!  We need a vacation to recover from our vacation!  When I set up the reservation months ago I did not realize that we would be gone right before school started, I thought we would have another week.  But they started back a little early this year.  Not that I have to follow the public school schedule, but Nick has to start back on Monday regardless of whether we start at home or not.  We will be starting back with a few subjects this week and work our way up to a full schedule over the next few weeks.

Lake Catherine State Park in Hot Springs is one of our favorite places to go. We had everything loaded up and ready to go to by lunch on Monday.  I drove the truck with Nick, Emmie, and Lily and towed the boat and Art drove the van with Alex, Christian, Anthony, and the dog and towed the camper.  The campsite we had was right on the water, had lots of shade and a dock.  It was HOT when we got up there so after getting set up and unloaded we went to the swim beach for the children to swim and play.  We also did some fishing that evening.

Tuesday we did some bike riding, more fishing, more swimming, and went to the nature cabin.  The children fed the fish and the turtle and held their 12 year old speckled king snake, Elvis.  We also attended a program on beavers.

Christian caught the smallest fsh

Wednesday morning after a bike ride, we decided to hike the Falls Branch Trail.  It is a 2 mile hike that has a waterfall.  Nick was feeling under the weather and stayed at the camper.  It was a beautiful hike, a bit strenuous, with several ups and downs and places you just had to be careful of where you put your feet.  It had 6 little wooden bridges to cross and a swinging bridge.  When we got about 1 1/2 miles in we came to the place where the waterfall was supposed to be and all that was there was a rock.  No waterfall. That was disappointing, but still beautiful.

No waterfall

After lunch we headed back to the Nature Cabin for a program on butterflies.  The park interpreter said that there had been no rain there in over 2 months which is why there was no waterfall.  I was surprised since we have had more rain this summer then we have had in a long time.  While we were in the cabin, we heard thunder from a distance.  Storms are always worse in Hot Springs and the thunder echoes so it is really loud.  It was still pretty far away so we let the children swim for a bit before heading back.

It started storming pretty badly.  Lightning struck .2 of a mile from where we were and it shook the camper!  The dog was terrified so the girls let her on the couch and covered her up.  We watched movies, played cards, and ate indoors.

By Thursday morning the storm had passed but it still was down pouring rain.  I reminded myself that I really need to pack some rain gear for everyone to leave in the camper.  Chelsea arrived that morning with Liam to spend the day and night with us, but it was still raining very hard.  So we went to Mid America Science Museum.  We had not been there in over a year and there were new exhibits to see and play with.  The outdoor skywalk was closed because of the rain and we also could not go see the new Dino Trek because it is outside.  We stayed and played for a couple of hours and by the time we got back to the camper it had stopped raining.

We ate lunch and decided to go see if there was a waterfall.  We took the short hike in that was only a 1/2 mile and were so excited to see the water flowing!  It was beautiful!  A very nice lady offered to take our picture and I was so thankful because I am hardly ever in any pictures as I am always taking them.

After spending time there we headed back to the beach for awhile.

And visited the playground.

Since Chelsea and Liam were staying the night Christian and Anthony gave up their bed for them and slept outside in the tent.

We stayed on Friday until lunchtime and then had to pack everything up to head back home.

I still have so much laundry to do even though I have been washing things since Friday night!

Now we have to work on getting back into a regular school year routine.  It has been such a busy summer and it ended way too quickly!

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!