I wish I was regaling you all with tales of our African adventures! The plan was to travel to Tanzania for the month of April. But alas, coronavirus had other plans! Our trip to Africa is postposed but that doesn’t mean we can’t have adventures! We have many summer days ahead and we decided to declare Friday as “Field Trip Friday.” Each week one of the Lilla children will plan out a local adventure for our family. We have a few ground rules:

1. Needs to be local (an hour or less from our house)

2. Be budget friendly

3. The “kid of the week” must do the research and gets to make the decisions (with some input from mom or dad!)

Katie (13) was the first Lilla to kick off Field Trop Friday! Katie took inspiration from our hikes in Germany and England and decided she wanted to plan a picnic and a hike. This was a bit surprising as she was not the biggest fan of those hikes. But I guess time colored those memories rosy for her and she was excited to plan our hike! Her first plan was Fontanelle Forest but soon discovered that it was not budget friendly as we don’t have a membership. On to Plan B! Katie chose Platte River State Park as she discovered they have a waterfall there.

So after packing a picnic lunch that would probably feed 35 grown men or so, we headed out to the park! Taking a left at the front entrance we quickly found the waterfall hike. We pulled out the lunch for 35 and enjoyed our picinic first. It was a bit early but Katie felt like our chances for a successful hike would be greater if we had food in our tummies (she was right!). So we enjoyed our sandwiches, chips, and fruit and then set out to find the waterfall.

It turned out to be a short trip to the waterfall. The kids hopped right through the mud and into the cool water of the stream. Can you find Charlie?

It turned out to be a short trip to the waterfall. The kids hopped right through the mud and into the cool water of the stream.

We enjoyed a few minutes of playing in the water and then continued our hiking. It was a lovely hike and we discovered interesting beetles and some cute squirrels. The complaining about the heat was minimal and we all remarked how nice it was no one needed to be carried! We made our way across the trails to a lovely bridge. This seemed like a perfect turnaround point and we headed back toward our car.

It was getting a bit warm and we were pretty hot so Katie chose the next part of the day – Slushies! I (Liz) decided to share the wonder of the QT convenience store with the kids. Did you know that the X-Large slushie is only $.50 more than the small? Well, the kids thought this was amazing and quickly set out to make the wildest slushie combinations they could! Would they drink it all? (spoiler alert – nope!).

All in all it was a grand Lilla adventure! We can’t wait for our next Field Trip Friday courtesy of Juliette – stay tuned!