Monday I took the kids to a nearby Metropark. For fishing. Which we didn't do. Nothing happens in this family without a bit of comedy of errors. I should have known by the difficult drive to the park that it was maybe not the best idea. First of all, I am NOT a morning person but this fishing trip required early morning hours while the fish are still biting. Yawn. We managed to leave home and come back four different times after continuously forgetting things. But still, I lived in denial!

Then I was so sleepy and slow on the uptake that I managed to mentally block out the sleep-inducing voice of my car's navigation system, missing who-knows-how-many turns along the way. I'm vaguely aware of at least 3 turns I missed but since my nav system just readjusts accordingly, I'll never know exactly how many wrong turns or missed turns occurred. I just know that ordinarily it is a 50 minute drive and I managed to extend it far beyond that.

My step-daughter had never been to this park and my boys wanted to show her all the things they love. Instead of renting a boat or going directly to the pier, like any smart parent would have insisted on, we decided to take a short walk on a path across a boardwalk that overlooks a rookery of Great Blue Herons. It is quite a sight to see and hear. I admit my own love of birds and my selfish disinterest in fishing swayed my judgment. Then we wanted to walk beyond the boardwalk around through the woods to a place we know we can fish off the shore and had always wanted to try. It is also right by an Osprey hacking so the boys wanted to show their sister that, as well.

Walking through the woods, I told the kids to be quiet and maybe we would see some animals. It was still early in the morning and the park wasn't too busy yet. Sure enough, sleeping about 15 feet off our path was a doe followed by another doe a few feet away. This should have been a Disney moment but instead it just scared the heck out of us. Turns out deer are pretty big up close and they always give you that deer-in-the-headlights look. These particular deer were close enough to touch but not concerned enough to get up from their sleepy position on the ground. Still - that piercing deer stare creeps me out. But I had to get a picture, of course, which meant standing still just feet from the deer while they stared me down urging me to get the heck out of dodge. I don't think this qualifies as a scrapbooking moment.

We got to our fishing spot only to find out that it was way too weedy, now, to fish. When we were here a month ago the weeds hadn't grown up yet. But we spotted a funny structure in the middle of the lake whose purpose is to encourage raptor nests and sure enough, there was a family of Osprey in the nest. We decided, now that shore fishing was a bust, to try to walk around the lake a little to get a good picture of the osprey nest.

So we walked. And we walked and walked and walked. And walked some more. And never got that picture. It started getting hot and we started getting tired. And then the bugs came out. I had the unusual foresight to bring bug sprays of various kinds. I started with a more natural variety and quickly moved up to the big guns. Nothing helped. These bugs were out for blood.

The kids were exhausted and worried we would never make it back to our car. Did I mention two of us were wearing flip-flops? Not prepared for walking through the woods for miles AT ALL. We stopped to rest a few times and pick woodchips and grass out of our sandals but mainly we just wanted to push on through to get back to our car. I was vaguely aware of the fact that we SHOULD have made the most of the trip through the woods, searching harder for snakes and reading the informational signs along the way. We could have made it fun. But the kids were focused on one thing and one thing along - getting back to the car. I don't think they trusted that we were on a real path, despite the signs. They didn't like the spontaneity of a long hike through the woods. Or maybe that's just transference on my part :-)

Hours later, we finally made it back to the area we parked in at the nature center. Dalton, the eternally energetic, convinced the rest of us to abandoned the car and head over to the nature center so he could share more familiar sights with his sister (who at this point was a good sport but badly wanted to be sitting in the car where, did I mention, we had left ALL the water?!). We limped over to look at the giant carp and the kids spotted a water snake. We had been looking for snakes all morning so it was ironic to finally find one in the water of all places. I went to get my camera to take pictures and......no camera.

I panicked, instantly. I could backtrack to where I left it but the sheer though of re-walking all the way back to that one spot with all the kids voluntarily was more than I could bear. I did a quick calculation of the cost of the camera and decided it may just be disposable after all. Frustrated, I made one last ditch effort to sweet talk a park ranger who offered to ride his little cart back there and pick it up for me. Whew! A half hour later, he delivered my camera and we headed to the car.

We did managed to take a quick dip in the lake (which freaked out at least one of my boys - they know exactly how big the fish are in that lake and how big the fish TEETH are!!) and a nice ride on a party pontoon that gave tours of the park. I thought it was fun but Paige was freezing the entire ride - still wet from her dip in the lake.

We decided, at that point, to quite while we were down and just head home. We'll try to fish again another day. Maybe.