Fall break

Our fall break this year began with a cross country meet in Shawnee. . .

In this meet, all of the junior high boys raced together, then high school. He was the fourth finisher for his school this time. He looks surrounded by 8th graders in this picture. I think three of the first four finishers for Norman were 6th graders.

The next day we headed to Osage Hills State Park for some weekend camping--in the rain. It wasn't as much rain as projected but we did get to finish a hike in a downpour.

This is a lousy picture but the kids had great fun sliding around in their sleeping bag on the slanted floor of our tent.

 Grace made this little fairyland assembly thing.

And then posed on this awesome tree with our camp area in the background. She LOVED that we had a forest for a backyard.

On Saturday we drove nearby to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.  As an added bonus, it was much warmer in the car AND we got perfect radio reception of the OU Texas game. And saw a lot of these guys--

 sad little donkey

The rest of our time was spent eating or hiking around looking for deer and waterfalls and whatever else we could find.

one of the babies

and the mama. We saw them a lot.

It was a pretty area and quite peaceful. I'm not sure if it gets crowded in the summer, but it was perfect while we were there. That may have something to do with the temperature and the football game too. We had our pick of camp sites and the kids had lots of room to roam and run around, another huge plus. It was a fun, mostly restful weekend with the family in my favorite spot--outside.