Sheppards Point at Heyburn Lake ~Kellyville, OK

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For the past three years we have gone on a Mother’s Day hike.

We hiked Saturday and Sunday this year!

On Saturday we headed to Heyburn Lake’s Sheppard Point.

I wanted to check out the Rattlesnake Trail there.

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trail

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You take the trailhead to the Boot hill trail.

We took the scenic route instead but you can feel free to take the more direct approach.

Some call it getting lost but I like to think of it as exploring…

poisonivy

Despite the hot weather we all wore long pants due to poison ivy, chiggers, and ticks.

It is a good idea to wear long pants on any trail that you know is narrow.

roadcrossing

You cross a park road to continue on the trail.

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Then you will see signs for the Rattlesnake Loop.

As far as I know it is not a loop.

Does anyone know why they call it that?

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You will need to cross another road to get to the trail.

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There is a lot of tall grass on this trail.

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I usually try to avoid brushing up against things while hiking but that was impossible on this hike.

My youngest summed up this hike really well.

“It‘s like an obstacle course of ticks, thorns, and those furry plants.”

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I do not think I have every had that many ticks on me before.

We stopped to take them off a lot.

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It was a beautiful hike though.

soft

The boys loved this soft plant.

water

Nick put a little bit of water on one of it’s leaves so the boys could see what happened.

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We turned around before the end of the trail(the trail is around 4.5 miles one way).

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We ended up doing over 7miles.

We will definitely try out this trail again but will wait until the cold weather to do it.

Way too many ticks otherwise!

A duel

duelNick has been gone since Sunday but gets back today.

I have been working on finding outlets for the boys energy while he is gone.

pacesI had them pulling weeds in the garden and thought a water gun fight would be a good way to cool off and wear themselves out.

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It’s too bad they do not enjoy water guns…

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They indulged me though.

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See the look of boredom on his face?

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faces

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What do you do to help get the wiggles out of your kids?

You know, so they don’t tear the whole house down…

I have not been successful.

They decided to swing from the towel bar in the bathroom.

Shockingly  it ripped the screws from the wall.

They just do not make things like they used to…

History ~Captivity, Moses, the Exodus, and Judges

booksThe Imagination Station “Secret of the Princes Tomb” is set at the beginning of the Israelites Slavery in Egypt.

“Tirzah” follows a young Israelite during the Exodus from Egypt and is a great read!

“Hittite Warrior” is set during the times of the judges, we have not read this one yet.

I am going to be reading it to them during the summer most likely.

insideI liked the “Almighty Bible’s” version of Genesis so I bought their Exodus version after we finished Tirzah and had the boys read it as a review.

It has great illustrations and I like the fact that it has more of the bible verse telling the story instead of paraphrasing.

verses

actionbibleThis is the inside of the “Action Bible” it is a great bible to give your kids an overview of the whole bible but I do not like how much “interpretation” is going on.

We worked in some straight bible reading also.

Science has taken a little bit of a back seat the past couple of months but we did try to study deserts a bit to get a feel for what it would have been like to travel through.

alldriedupThe Magic School Bus has a book and episode called “Gets All Dried Up” that explains deserts really well.

ecomazeEcoMazes is a pretty interesting book.

ecomazebook

deserttoobfigureI bought a Safari Toob from Hobby Lobby and let the boys set up a little diorama.

They got the idea from the Magic School Bus.

playI actually waited to write this post so we could do this today.

I kept putting it off but writing a post about it pushed me to get it done.

labelI looked up the names of everything on the site for the Toob and had them label them.

labelsIt helped me to feel like they were actually learning something.

I do not know if they did or not but I feel better.

sun

biomeWe have not done any of the projects in this book but they have some really cool ones!

I would not mind owning this one.

We are actually done in a way with school.

We finished Friday.

That said, we are doing Math all summer.

I have decided to take a break from math this week and start up again Monday.

Anyone else doing some school work this summer?

That way I do not feel all alone…