"Camping"

I have been remiss in my blogging duties lately. We rented a cabin near Featherville for the weekend almost two weeks ago. The highlight of the trip was our 2.5 mile hike to Skillern Hot Springs. Elena spotted four caterpillars on the hike, which was her favorite part. I showed her a large tree (3' diameter") that a very industrious beaver nearly chewed down. Elena was very upset with the beaver and said, "That's not nice!" We spent most of the next week fielding beaver questions, so we picked up some beaver-related books at the library. I tried reading them to her, but she "reads" them to me instead. Most of the stories go something like this: "There's a beaver. It chewed down a tree! That's not nice!"

Here are some pictures from our hike.

We ate lunch near the hot spring while the tub filled up. We had to abandon our first lunch spot because we were attacked by ants. Following the ant assault, Elena stomped on every single ant she crossed on the trail. I finally had to carry her because we were only moving about three steps between ant stomping episodes.

Here we are enjoying the soaking tub. Skillern is a decent hot spring, but I wouldn't rate it as high as some of the others we have visited. Marcus really enjoyed it because the pool was shallow enough for him to stand up on his own.

Elena learned how to use the "outside potty" on this trip. On Mother's Day she demonstrated her skills on John and Mary's back patio (she and her cousin Katie were outside and the rest of us were still in the house). Then she sat in it.