Cypresswood Hike and Bike Trail

Speaking of early morning adventures – we finally made it out of the house early enough to explore another branch of the Cypress Creek/Faulkey Gully Hike and Bike Trails before it got too ridiculously hot.

This time we explored a little over a mile section that ran from Jones road to Louetta.

We headed out super early in an attempt to beat the heat and weren't alone - we ran in to at least two dozen people out walking, running or biking the trails.

We left so early in fact that we packed up breakfast to enjoy along the way.

The boys really liked the Orange creamcicle muffins I picked up the night before.

Ryan kept telling Connor it was okay if he dropped some crumbs on the trail because the squirrels would eat it.  But only little ones.  Connor had no intention what so ever of sharing any of his muffin with anyone and practically shoved the whole thing in his mouth at once.  :)

The kids were excited to get to carry their milk (and chocolate milk! in Connor's case).

Despite the lack of shade for the most part on this section of the trail the kids had a good time running along the trail and occasionally even remembering that they were supposed to wait for us, too.  :)

At one point when we couldn't find the playground that was rumored to be along the trail in this direction and decided to head on further Kevin turned around to go back and get the car to meet us at the other end.  The kids and I continued on at our leisurely pace walking alongside an older man.  He was 78, and his back yard backs up to the trail so he walks a section of it every day, twice a day.  We had a nice chat about a little bit of everything before finally parting ways at the footbridge which led across the creek to a small neighborhood park on the other side where we caught back up with Kevin again.

The boys of course enjoyed getting to play at the park.  One of the first things they noticed was the see-saw.  It has become one of their favorite things to play on.  It's a good thing there are two of them and they are pretty equally balanced.

Though it gets a bit dangerous at times when one just decides to get off with no warning what so ever.  Sometimes in mid flight.  And Ryan is always a little exuberant in his pushing off.  Connor doesn't even have to push unless he wants to as Ryan's enthusiastic pushing is enough to bounce Connor right back off the ground back into the air again.  :)

After a while they spied the swings in their favorite colors, and found someone gullible enough to push them forever.  :)  Someday they will actually learn how to swing themselves right??

As Connor explored the rest of the playground Ryan conned Kevin into spinning him around in circles on the tire swing.

The spinner was particularly well oiled and spun in circles easily.  Ryan thought it was awesome.  That kids loves to make himself so dizzy he can barely stand.

Connor of course decided to troop right up with the rings the second I was on the other side of the slide.  And on his first trip he didn't make it.  Luckily he slipped harmlessly in between two rings not managing to hit anything on the way down and then popped right back up to try it again as if it had all been orchestrated.

Luckily he had more success on subsequent attempts.

The two silly gooses spent quite a bit of time running and bouncing on the metal bridge, too.  Despite some close calls they managed not to plow into one another and no one got knocked off.  Not wanting to press our luck any further and with Connor shouting that he NEEDED to POOP! we packed everyone back into the car and headed for a second breakfast.

We stopped nearby at the Egg&I.

The kids had fun coloring and playing games while we waited for our food to arrive.

They were really hamming it up. 

Ryan managed to hijack all the yellow map colors and insisted that it was the only color he wanted to color with .... on the yellow paper.  Silly Goose.

Once our food arrived we all dug in.  I had barely had more than half of my breakfast when I looked over and Kevin who had a MUCH larger breakfast was sopping up everything except the copious amounts of butter on his plate.  I swear he doesn't even taste the food on the way down.