April 25- Brooker Creek Reserve

Today for my Mom's birthday we all went to Brooker Creek Reserve. I have researched a number of nature parks and put hiking and exploring as a summer activity. I want to so badly to be an outdoor and nature buff and to teach my kids to love and have an appreciation for the outdoors, but this outing did not start us out on the right foot. When I was looking over the website and planning our day, I blatantly ignored the wear long clothes and the need for bug repellent. I was thinking we weren't going to be out there for too long so we wouldn't need those things. Boy was I mistaken! It kind of makes me chuckle to think about it now. We were doing good until my Mom suggested that on the way back we take another path. We were hiking along the path back and happened upon standing water (it had rain earlier that day) and it was like swarm of the killer mosquitos. It was like 10 of them on all of us at any given time. I was ate up from smacking them off the kids. Ariel you swore off the outdoors completely. Cailin you were just plain terrorized and Rylie, sadly you are too young to know the difference.