Picnics and Turtles

         It's starting to feel like summer is finally here.  Time for picnics, outdoor rambles, and finding a shady little water hole to play in. I know it's not even May yet, but around here, May is basically a summer month.
      This is our last week of school, and I am SOOO ready for a little down time.  Anna's end of year test result came back better than I expected, (Not that I expected bad, but she did really well.)  and I feel like I can finally exhale. 

    I'm so grateful to live near open outdoor spaces that we can go to.  With beautiful weather like this, you just want to spend every moment of it outside. 
     Dave and I have been going to the park every day to exercise.  We take turns doing laps around the lake while the other one watches the kids at the playground.  Today, Anna had her bike, and the twins had their trikes, so I let them take a lap around the lake.  It's not a very big lake; only a little over half a mile around, but we were able to see some pretty neat stuff all the same. 

The Lake is populated by tons of red eared sliders, and today ( without my camera, of course) I saw a tiny little hatchling.  It was on top of some pond slime, so I just scooped it up before it could swim away.  It's shell wasn't any bigger than a silver dollar.  The kids were in ecstasies over getting to touch a baby turtle.  It's seemed so helpless, that I almost felt bad about letting it go, but of course that is what it was intended to do.  Although tiny, it knows how to take care of it's self without help from it's mother. 



I know one thing; tomorrow I am not forgetting my camera!