Cookout at the Lake

 We have lots of geese out in the field in front of our house.  And we've seen several of them with goslings lately, all moving west.  Not sure where they're going, but they're all headed the same direction.

These were pretty far out from the house, and had at least four or five babies with them.  This morning, there were two big geese with one little one between them that came right by our yard.  They were sure in a hurry though, and my camera was on a different floor of the house, so I didn't get a picture.

Yesterday I completed a blackout on my book bingo card.  I'll post more in detail about that in a couple days. I took it in to the library and got my raffle tickets - one ticket for each Bingo, making 12 tickets total.  In June, author Craig Johnson will be in town for a book talk and he will draw the winning ticket.  (He's the Wyoming author who wrote the books the A&E show Longmire is based on).  The winner gets an Amazon gift card.

 Last night we headed up to the lake for a cookout.

HA. This is the five year old saying, "No! Don't take a picture.  Put your camera down, mom!"

The kids gathered up sticks and built a fire.

This picture is a little creepy - looks like my ten year old is standing in the fire.

We were a little worried about the weather for a bit.  The clouds rolled in and we had a few sprinkles, but thankfully it passed over quickly.

My husband took the opportunity to fish, but didn't catch anything.

Odd way to drink a juice bag, but it got dropped onto a rose bush and had a hole in the bottom :)

We roasted Kronski's over the fire - they are a type of brat made locally.

 After dinner (and s'mores) my daughter, two year old and I took a hike along the lakeside.

He's very observant and loved checking everything out along the way.

He did really well keeping up with us, but when he came to this first obstacle, he stopped and said, "Get me!"

We told him he could do it, and he said, "Okay!" and did. From that point on, he just climbed over or crawled over any obstacle we came to.

We saw a bunch of different flowers.

These are Oregon grapes, which we pick to make jelly when they're ripe.

 We saw (and heard) a lot of birds.  I couldn't figure out what this one was, so if anyone knows, let me know.

Here's a closer view.  I tried searching online but didn't have any success.  It seems like it should be pretty simple to figure out, which makes it frustrating.

**Edited **  My mother-in-law has figured out the mystery for me :) This is a female Northern Flicker - in the woodpecker family (like my Dad guessed).

 We came to one place where a large tree with a bunch of branches that we had to climb the hillside to get around.  It was rough going so my daughter picked her brother up to pack him around it.  He hollered at her the whole time to, "Put me down! Do it myself!"

Once we got down by the lake we saw an osprey.

 We found a nice little beach area.

The sand was so soft and our feet just sank into it.

I couldn't believe the two year old made it through the whole hike and didn't grab a pine cone, so here's a picture of one I found on the beach :)

We stayed on the beach until the sun started to set.

There were several trees down in the area. It looked like there had been a fire some time back.  This one was interesting because the bark was peeling off in one solid piece.

 The wood was very smooth and white.  I'm guessing the bark must have slipped off this winter with the help of the snow.  It isn't weathered at all yet.

 My daughter spent much of her time texting a friend from college :( but she insists that she still saw the scenery.  And at least she was hanging out with us.

When we got back to camp, I found my other boys ... playing with fire.

Everyone had a good time though, and we didn't burn the forest down, so it's all good :)