Collecting Leaves

Last Friday Jeremy took the day off work to spend with the family. It was really nice to have us all together on a weekday. :) It just feels different, like a vacation at home. We planned to go up the canyon to collect colorful leaves - like we do every year. This time we went up the canyon to Maple Lake. It has a nice trail that goes all the way around the lake. We are just starting onto the trail in this picture.
Samantha looks cute here. I think it's funny how she refused to wear her jacket. We made her bring it because it was a little bit chilly. She definitely sticks to her guns.


Ho! I am Jeremy! I found a cat tail!

Jeremy was the only one brave enough to lean way over the cold water and fetch a couple of cat tails. I have been wanting to show the kids what cat tails are and let them play with it. I used to play with them when I was little and I thought they were completely fascinating. Athena and Samantha loved the cat tail, and I still think they are fascinating. They sat and pulled and pulled and pulled out the cotton until Athena had the great idea to have Samantha spank her with it. The cotton stuck all over the back of her coat. After that I told them they were done.


We used the timer! Jeremy just now realized that our camera has a timer! It made me laugh because it was the typical "Dad trying to use the timer" experience. We sat there FOREVER in our pose, until our legs were killing while he tried to set it up. He had the camera sitting on a picnic table and it was pointed too low for where he wanted us to be - up on this hill. He sat there trying to balance the camera on little fishing egg containers that someone had left up there. The camera kept on falling over and pointing the wrong way. Finally he thought he had it right, so he ran up and joined us, only to have the camera not click. He had to go back and adjust it some more and actually turn the timer on (it wasn't really on the first time). Then he ran up again and we got this picture. He wanted to try it one more time, but I told him we were done sitting there. I think it turned out cute, though.

This stream leads to the lake. We thought it looked really pretty with the sun shining on it. It was much more sparkly in person. :)

Pretty view of the lake. The water was so perfectly clear that we could see the fish swimming around underneath.

I took this pretty picture of all the fall leaves decorating the mountainside.

When we were driving home we passed this point where we could see all the way down into the valley. I love this view.

Just as we were about to come out of the canyon we had to slow down for this flock of wild turkeys. I didn't even know they lived up there! I'm sure there are tons of animals up there, they are usually just hiding in the brush.

The kids all collected their fair share of pretty leaves to bring home and I even got some to decorate our table with. I came home and put them all in a vase on our table. Now we have a little bit of fall at our home.