As a parent I have three choices.
1. Let them outside.
2. Throw them outside.
3. Take them outside.
There are times in south east Texas where I actually keep them in. Hurricanes, tropical storms, generally rainy days when I'm not in the mood to have them go out for 5 minutes and play in the mud and then spend an hour cleaning up the aftermath. There are times when the world is messy and I'm lazy. It's been so hot these first weeks of school that they haven't even been allowed outside for recess. That sucks and is a whole other topic.
I throw them out a lot. South east Texas has a lot of wonderful playing weather. If it's not raining it's probably a good time to go outside. We have an acre and a half. We have bikes. We have trees. There has to be something that they can do other than sit in the living room and fight over Littlest Pet Shops. Out you go.
Today I took them out. We went north 45 minutes to the Big Creek Scenic Area in the Sam Houston National Forest. It's probably my favorite place to go in all of East Texas. It's very quiet and the trees are huge and you can let the kids just run down the trails screaming and not worry about anything. When we head up there as a family we head down to the creek and throw sticks and pine cones in for a while and hike one of the loops. A couple of miles hiking and a really good time. When I go there by myself I take the Lone Star Trail to the Double Lake camp ground and get a drink at the drinking fountain and then head back. That's a 10 mile out and back trip that is almost certainly the best 10 mile run within an hour of Houston.
There are quite a few big trees down across the trails now. I think the ongoing drought has left us with an unusually high number of dead trees and some of them have toppled. The Forest Service is really quite good about keeping the trails cleared considering how few people use them. The trees are probably a bother for some but for us they're all good fun.
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