Mother's Day 2013

One of my favorite things about where we live is that there are nature reserves all around us. They are a wonderful way for us to enjoy the outdoors close by when we can't make the drive to the mountains or to the ocean. This year for Mother's day we decided to go to one of the reserves that sits just outside of town,The Consumnes River Preserve. I love coming here and so it was a perfect place to be on this day. Ron thought I could practice my photography here. He's really good at encouraging me to keep going and to get better. I really love him for that. Surprisingly there weren't very many people there on that day and it made the occasion all the more enjoyable.

We decided to take one of the boardwalk trails. It leads out into one of the ponds/marshes. This is where we saw this cute little watchful frog. It was fun to watch him watching us. At least that is how it seemed as he would swim from one side of the bridge to the other as we did. I love frogs and so I was really enjoying our little friend. The older kids thought it was fun to see him too but I think Jaxen may have enjoyed it the most. These last few month's he's really gotten into the idea of animal adventuring and says that is what he wants to be when he grows up. He's discovered Chris and Martin Kratt and loves to watch their show "Wild Kratts." He went around naming all the animals he saw just like they do in the show. I don't remember what he named the frog tho. I think it was something like Bullfreeg or something.

I do remember what Jaxen named this crawdad, however. He was named Humungo because he was the biggest one we saw that day. There were so many crawdads around then. It was fun to watch. We even saw a few sparing matches. The kids started to cheer them on. It was great. I think that was one of my favorite gifts that day, seeing the kids all enjoy and having fun with nature as much as I do! That is one of my greatest desires that my kids will always have a love and appreciation of nature and our world. I hope they can always see the wonder and amazement that is all around us.  I hope I am doing a well enough job to show them this!

It was a beautiful day full of egrets, crawdads and frogs! Warm sunshine and peaceful scenery. It was just what I needed for Mother's day! I don't always feel like the best mother but I am so happy I got to celebrate this day with my wonderful family. They are the best and I love them all so much. My life would not be complete without them!