Spring this year at North Texas has been quite a roller coaster weather wise. Finally we got some beautiful days last weekend and Justin was home from TAMS. We went to the popular local park Arbor Hills Nature Preserves for a picnic to enjoy the beautiful Sunday. The parking lot was almost full when we got there around 12:40 pm.
As always many people were jogging, running or biking in the park. We went to the picnic area first for our lunch. Looking around, there were many families in the shelter area already, some had KFC, some had McDonald's, and there was a group BBQ. We had self-made turkey ham sandwiches with fresh cucumber, lettuce tomato - all ingredients bought just an hour ago. To the boys' delight, they each had a large bottle of flavored sparkling water. But they did not need that for meal because the veggies and ham were so juicy. We had a great family lunch, enjoying food, sharing drinks and chatting.
After lunch we went for a walk along the big loop trail.
Sky was blue with few clouds. Trees were leafy green swinging gently in breeze. The temperature was around 72F. We jogged at a leisure pace, looking around, and had conversations on and off. As I was trying to capture the beauty of the late spring on camera, I was trailing the rest of the family most of the time.
A few minutes after I made the observation that flowers were sparse, likely due to the huge swing in temperature, we walked up a trail toward the observation tower, blooming yellow flowers covered the hill side! I lingered there for a while to take pictures and trailed the rest of family more.
When I finally caught up with my family, Lily noticed a green snake crossing the concrete trail - it was pretty slow on the concrete, and we had to warn a roller skater passing by. As it got into grass, it became much faster, disappearing in a blink of the eye.
Lily's conversations with the boys were apparently very engaging since neither of them complained about the long walk (2+ miles). We got back to our minivan at 2:05 pm and the parking lot was full now, a few cars were waiting as I backed out from our parking spot.
We had a lively and healthy lunch, the boys were away from computer games for a couple hours, and they were outdoor exercising for a full hour. In addition to fresh air, beautiful scenery, another reason I like to have outdoor family activity is that it is when the whole family is really together without distraction of social media and separation by computers.
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