CHATEAU MABILE

About 10 minutes down the road from us is a fantastic little place in our town. It is a natural spring with the coooldest, clearest, yummiest drinking water and a rushing creek. The spring is right on the side of the road and people stop constantly to fill up containers with the water. Just beyond the spring is the creek which rushes over rocks one second and meanders around trees the next. Walk across the little bridge that goes over the creek and you find yourself on a fairly steep, very peaceful wooded path (unfortunately the peace is quite disturbed by mosquitoes right now but it wasn't so bad a month ago when we first did it). Once you climb out of the trees you are on the side of a pretty hill covered in wind-blown prairie grasses. You get some pretty great views of the valley surrounding our town. Mom is a nature lover so we knew she wouldn't mind trying out the trail with us. We loved it and would have gone farther, but Liam's little legs were tired!

To steal a quote from Mom's blog, "This tree was just begging for a little boy to sit in it."

Liam now calls this his tree. We sat in it coming and going.

I think this little butterfly must have been injured and unable to fly because he was quite pleased to sit on everyone's finger.

Fascinated by the butterfly. Greg held her other arm back to protect the little guy.

The path went through some very tall prairie grasses.

Liam was glad to be out of the grass that was over his head.

Beautiful right?

Doesn't that look like the hill Mary, Laura, and Carrie run down on the tv version of Little House on the Prairie? Stay tuned for Pt. 2!