Lookout Mountain

Yesterday the kids and I decided to take a half day trip up to Lookout Mountain, which is about 45 minutes from our house. I was only slightly nervous making my first trip into the mountains with all four kids but without Jeremy. My main concern was keeping track of them while trying to take pictures at the same time. They all did amazingly well and were very cooperative and there was No whining or fussing on the entire trip! (I usually get "I'm bored" a lot in the car from Katie and "I'm tired of walking" from any of the youngest three.) Only Jonah seemed to be out of energy by the end. For the last five minutes as we were walking up the trail toward the car he said over and over, "I need my car." "Where's my car?"

Here are some of the highlights in pictures.

Our first stop at a scenic overlook was one of our favorites on the trip. There we saw literally hundreds of ladybugs in large groupings on one of the trails. It was interesting to note that many adults went past us on the trail totally oblivious to the huge population of ladybugs but because I had little people with me and the ladybugs were all at their eye level we got immense enjoyment out of them. The largest grouping were on poison ivy bushes so I refrained from trying to get a close up of those but here is a small sampling of them. How many ladybugs can you "spot"? Aidan and I each counted several times and came up with the same number. I will reveal the answer tomorrow. (You might want to save the picture to your computer and enlarge it.)

Our picnic lunch:

Aidan said his favorite part was all the flowers. He has an amazing appreciation for the different varieties of wildflowers and how they look grouped together with varying colors of brush and leafy plants. So, here are a few of the flowers we saw along the way. He was totally wild about the orange flowers with puffy red centers in the first picture. I'm not sure what all of the flowers are but I do know that the red flowers are poppies and the blue are columbines.


At the top of Lookout Mountain is the historic Boettcher Mansion where Jeremy and I almost got married--we'd put a deposit down and then realized it wouldn't hold the number of people that would attend. So it was a bit nostalgic for me. I love the stone architecture of this gazebo, which matches the stone of the mansion (I failed to get a picture of the outside of the mansion.) Aidan loved that the inside also has stone walls and felt like a castle.


This mushroom was enormous-the top was at least the size of my spread out hand.
It was a very happy trip and we will be returning very soon--hopefully with Jeremy!

I have lots of "catch-up" blogs to post and think I will have time over the next several days to do one a day so stay tuned! Next up: Aidan's Baseball Season