A Weekend In The Hill Country

Last weekend was a busy one, but fun. Ron and I both took off the afternoon from work and headed south to see Tyler in his school play. With all of the traffic, we arrived just in time for the play to begin. Tyler did a great job in "Moon Over Buffalo", a comedy in which he was a leading man. Since he was busy with his cast after the play, we arranged to have breakfast with him the next morning. We headed to IHop and celebrated his upcoming birthday over eggs and pancakes. (excuse the horrible iPhone pictures)

And since it's always fun to embarrass a teenager, when the waitress asked if we wanted them to sing to him, I told them "definitely!"

While he pretended to be embarrassed, it was obvious he loved it as well! The waitress offered to take our picture in the horrible lighting, just as Tyler smeared whipped cream all over my cheek!

From there, we headed to Kerrville to visit Terry, Jaylynn and little Archer. Archer has grown a lot since I last saw him and was at such a fun age---crawling and cruising everywhere and babbling the whole time.

Sunday morning, we all loaded up and drove to Vanderpool, TX to the Lost Maples State Park. I'd never even heard of this park, but it was very pretty and lots of fun. After strapping Archer onto Terry's back, we set out on the East Trail in search of changing leaves.

He had on sunscreen, but we forgot his hat, so Papaw let him wear his cap. . .

. . . which slid progressively lower as we walked along.

It was still quite warm in that area, so the leaves were still mostly green, but we enjoyed the hike together.

We saw the Monkey Rock--which really did look like a sock monkey.

Nearby, these rocks looked pretty animated as well.

It was a moderate hike with just enough challenge to keep it interesting and enough easy sections and places to rest to make it enjoyable.

There were interesting stone ledges along the way. . .

lots of butterflies. . .

cactus . . .

bees . . .

and leaves that were JUST beginning to change colors.

We were all pretty pooped when we made it to the top, but there were great views once we arrived and we enjoyed taking it all in. Everyone except Archer, that is.

We even had time to take a few pictures.

We were all pretty hungry as we made our way back to Kerrville, but we braked for deer sightings. Ron and Terry got pretty excited about seeing this buck in a field.

The next morning, we all went to eat at their favorite breakfast spot, Del Norte, before we headed out.

We decided to go back home via Stephenville. Carmelle and family have been so busy and stressed with all of them in school right now. It had been a while since we'd seen them, so, we decided to surprise them by stopping by for a couple of hours. We timed it so that the kids were just getting home from school. The way they shot out of the car to hug us when they saw us made it all worth the drive!!! It was a short visit, but a needed break for all of us.