100 Joys ~ #17 ~ Wordless and Wordful Wednesday ~ After the Storm

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Joy # 17

Yesterday I went out grocery shopping with Andy.  We really did try to beat the storms that were headed our way.  But it didn't work.  I even complained a little bit on Facebook.  Here's what I wrote, "Cold and wet. Tried to do the grocery shopping before the squall line of rain/storms hit. Didn't make it. But it's done!"  Let me tell you...we really were soaked!  But after the complaining, drying ourselves off, getting dinner started, Sam yelled downstairs...do you see the sunset?  Well, I really hadn't looked.  I thought it was still pouring rain.  It had stopped and what we saw afterwards was just breathtaking!  This is my 17th Joy of the season.

What are your 100 Joys this Season?  What joy is God putting  in front  of you to see?  Blog about your 100 Joys and come back here  every  Sunday to link up!

Don't forget to enter the book giveaway!  I draw the winner tomorrow and I only have a few entries.  

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Cedar Ridge Preserve

I've been meaning to write about last Saturday all week but I just never got around to it. Last weekend Sam and I were supposed to be camping at the Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose TX, with the scouts. But there were terrible thunderstorms on Thursday evening and all day Friday. So it was cancelled. Sam and I were not to happy that we didn't get to go. On Saturday once the misty rain that was still in the air left the area we got into the car and went to the Cedar Ridge Preserve to hike. We had a ton of fun and I loved watching Sam observe all the nature around him. We went to three of their areas, the Butterfly Garden, Little Bluestem Trail and the Bluebonnet Trail. Oh and somewhere in there we took a wrong turn, doubled back and also took part of the Mulberry Trail. These trails were "ranked" wheelchair accessible, easy and moderate. There are even easy-moderate, moderate-difficult and difficult trails. The Bluebonnet Trail that we took was rated moderate and I must tell you that we were worn out after we were done. My definition of moderate sure didn't meet theirs. But the part I remember most is the smile on Sam's face as we did it. We will go back. Maybe even tomorrow if the weather holds out. Don't know which trail we'll do next but we'll do a different one for sure. Of course, I took my camera and took a ton of pictures. I put together a slide show of some of them (see below) and I also wanted to share with you just a handful of my favorites. Remember that you can click on the pictures to see them bigger.

This is just one of many beautiful poppies that we saw in the Butterfly Gardens.

Sam loved and I can't state it loud enough for you....LOVED....looking at the snails. Since we had so much rain there were snails everywhere. At one point, once we started on the moderate trail, I had to remind him that he had to watch where he was going instead of trying not to step on the snails.

I loved the fact that I was able to capture the rain drops on the flowers that we saw in the Butterfly Gardens. The smell of these roses were heavenly.

When we got off the right trail we rain into a lot of sticky mud. At one point our shoes had so much mud on them we both felt like we had 5-10 pound weights on our feet. This picture was taken after we had stomped off some of the mud. And in case you are wondering...yes, my 9 year old son has bigger feet than I.

Towards the end of the last trail that we were on we found this tree. I love the way that it bends and twists.