Lost Maples State Natural Area

This past Friday we went to Lost Maples State Natural Area for the day. We've been wanting to go and this is the best time of the year to go because of the fall foliage. We don't have 'color changing trees' in most of Texas and so it's somewhere to go to experience a little bit more of fall. We were excited to head out there and we were not disappointed at all!!! If you love fall, autumn leaves, beautiful scenery, a gorgeous hike...DEFINITELY go here!!!

I also had a new camera to play with thanks to Casey and Logan heading out at midnight for some Black Friday shopping for this great deal we found! I was going to wait to play with my Christmas present until after opening it at Christmas, but we decided that this was a destination to definitely have a good camera for. I am in LOVE with my camera!!! I took over 150 pictures...here's about 1/3 of them.

This leaf was bigger than a dinner plate!

As you'll notice, I am not in any of the pictures...but a kind gentleman offered to take our picture...and I LOVE it!

So pretty!!!

The girls were enjoying watching the tiny little fish  and the water bugs in the water.

Tabitha loves riding along with Casey on hikes! Casey's shoulders don't love it so much (she's getting big!) but he loves having her close.

This was our favorite area along this particular trail...lots of leaves, big rocks, etc for the girls to play in and climb on.

Tabitha got hold of a leaf and was so excited!

She is soooo great!

She was throwing the leaves up in the air...

Mckayla found a big leaf!

Logan was throwing leaves up too...

They loved playing in the leaves!

This area of the park was stunning! That canyon wall/rim was so high!

I absolutely LOVE this picture!!!

A small waterfall along the way.

This is 'the Ponds'...you can swim in there and it is spring fed. It was so clear and so beautiful!

Tabitha thought it was so cool to be by the water.

She is growing up so quickly.

We really enjoyed the contrast of the bright fall colors against the white & gray rocks.

I saw this leaf up against this rock along the trail and could not pass up the photo-op.

The swirls and designs in this tree trunk were so beautiful!

We hiked for over 4 hours and the girls loved it just as much as we did.

Logan was enjoying going up ahead

If you go to Lost Maples, we took the East Trail to 'The Ponds'. It's a nice stroll and easy for the little ones. Granted we took a looong time on it and the kids played quite a bit along the way and we took a detour on our way back.

This was one of my most favorite days! I really cannot put into words what a great day it was. It was SO beautiful! I LOOOVE the Texas Hill Country! It was a perfect weather day, we were together as a family...it was just simply wonderful.