All posts by Danielle Huddleston

Salt Plains State Park ~Jet, OK

We had a great three day weekend at the Salt Plains State Park and nearby Wildlife Refuge for our 16th wedding anniversary. We stayed at the Sandy Cove campground this time and it ended up being a great site.

The campground is right next to the swimming beach which worked out great with the 100 degree temps.

If you are going to visit, there were a LOT of ants and no soap in the bathrooms. Also, the bathrooms had those half doors that are basically useless so keep that in mind.

My kids basically wanted to just live at the beach. It has a nice sandy beach but is very shallow for a very long time (I never found any water above my waist), it also turns to mud as you get further out. The sandy beach and shallow water would be great for little ones though! We mostly stayed at the state park so we could go crystal digging at the nearby Salt Plains Wildlife Refuge! My kids loved it so much the last time we went that I knew it would be a hit. It is such a breathtaking place to visit in Oklahoma.

Definitely worth a visit, even if you don’t want to dig.

If you do want to go digging, you will need sun protection, a shovel, and a bucket. Also clothes you don’t mind getting salty and muddy would be good!

As with most trips we had a few fails.

Trying to hike in the mid-day crazy heat (my idea), oops.

The water tank started leaking in the rv so we could not use the water in there, thankfully we have plenty of kids that can haul water 😉

And I had brought beach towels so we could clean up the mess.

Even the hot temps were okay.

We just tried to go out and do things in the morning (except for my attempt at hiking) and evening.

The beach in the evening was so relaxing and beautiful. I still went out at night after kids went to bed to take a picture and listen to the quiet.

One night, I thought I was going to take picture of the sunset and ended up stumbling upon this guy.

He finally got annoyed that I kept taking his picture and slithered off into the woods.

It was fun to watch him weave all around the picnic tables though.One morning we got going early (well as early as you can with 5 kids) to hike at the wildlife refuge.

It was a beautiful hike.The kids loved all the bullfrogs they saw on the hike, they were huge! We have hiked here before but this morning hike was my favorite. The kids played tablets in the heat of the day.

It ended up being a great trip and we really enjoyed this campground location!

Have you been to the Salt Plains in Oklahoma?

Check out our video on youtube of our time in the Salt Plains!

Collinsville Lake Trails ~Collinsville, OK

We hiked at the Collinsville Lake trails for the first time on Saturday! We followed all the outside trails for a big loop. The kids all seemed to enjoy it and it smelled amazing from all the flowers right now. I liked that the trails were mostly wide enough that you did not have to brush up against plants and worry about ticks as much. The kids found a turtle laying eggs.

I really enjoyed this hike!

Has anyone else checked this one out yet?

 

Week 10 ~School and lots of Outside time!

I am still doing a nightly photo project. Sometimes the light is pretty and you just need a model. Wild Allium We watched a video on Hero of Alexandria so we broke out the project we did years ago. It was the first time for the girls and the boys did not remember it so it was fun to break it out again.

I am trying Singapore Math with Little Bit. Still enjoying Super Charged Science.

I think the kids just like that we get to do fun things like make ice cream in the middle of the day!

My oldest girl thought it was too cold. Reading is starting to click for this girl!

Such an exciting time!

Lots of garden watching going on. Little Bit wants to be like her big sister’s. That is one way to cool off 😉 They are still working on what they hope will be a grapevine arbor. We are starting to have days that are just too hot to not play in the water 😉 I am not sure he was happy with his situation…

We ended the week with a hike at The Trails at Collinsville Lake and it was so nice!

Great place to hike.

I feel like this post is already pretty full of pictures though so I will try to do a separate post of our hike.

Are you able to get out and hike in your area?