A 'Real' Outdoor Adventure

Those of you who know me well know that I am not an outdoorsy-type of person.  I am a home-body who likes staying at home in the home as much as possible.  I also do not enjoy any type of recreational physical activity. Like I said, I'm a non-active homebody. (But I do love to vacation but that's another topic.)

Mixing physical activity and outdoors is almost never on my want-to-do-list. But sometimes I do it, for the sake of my family. Plus I want to prove to my youngest daughter that I DO know how to ride a bicycle!

Today we went on a family bike trip up to the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge and Coyote Hills Regional Park. This was the last 'field trip' of the summer with their cousins.

Last time I went on a family bike trip was in 2006, exactly five years ago.

Hannah and Z were 3 and they were 'towed' by my husband on his bike.

Now they ride their own bikes!

And Emily is still using the same helmet!

We have to get her a new one. She's been using the same one for almost 8 years now.

We biked all the way up to the Coyote Hills sign. I thought, for our first family biking trip, we would be riding on a nicely paved flat surface the entire time... to accommodate the little ones, of course.  But my husband is the adventurous one and planned a very scenic but bumpy (dirt roads) and hilly (up, down and around the hills) ride.

We saw a huge quarry where trucks were loading and unloading rock and dirt.

On the top of a huge hill, we were able to get a clear view of the Bay going towards the bridge...

...while D was on the other side against the 'lush' hills.

Trying to keep up with Hannah

We road for  2-1/2 miles and stopped at the Visitor's Center to have a picnic lunch. After lunch, the kids wanted to explore the marshes and spent some time trying to catch tadpoles.

J actually caught one with his magnify container.

But he felt it was too small so he let it go. Unfortunately he couldn't catch a bigger one.

There was a huge white pelican in the marsh.

My oldest daughter has become a bird enthusiast and gets so excited whenever she spots a feathered creature. She doesn't call them 'birds'.. instead she calls them by their 'real' names.

This is a snowy egret.

This is a black necked stilt.

These are red winged blackbirds.

Overall, we rode 5 miles and all I can say is, boy, my bottom was sore! I guess I don't have to exercise today!

As I reflect on all the outings we went to this summer.. the 'free' ones were the most memorable and most enjoyable for the kids. I guess 'Nature' has it's perks! I'm not complaining. 'Free' and 'Fun' go together like two peas in a pod!