Palmetto State Park for St. Patty's Day

We got a Texas State Parks pass last Summer and decided we needed to hurry up and visit as many State Parks as we can before the weather turns to 100 degrees again, which is probably going to happen before we know it.  As of right now though, Texas is gorgeous. It's perfect Spring weather and everything is so green! We didn't get to see Texas like this last year with all the flowers and green because of the drought. 

Our goal is to visit a new State Park every Saturday that we aren't doing anything, and maybe throw in one or two camping trips as well. 

This past Saturday we went to Palmetto State Park, which apparently not very many people here in Texas know about. Every time we told people that we were going to Palmetto State Park, they didn't where it was, even the local Texans. We forgot it was St. Patty's Day, but Scott and Boston both wore green by chance. This picture of the green stroller by all the green palmettos, and Scott in his green shirt was the extent of our St. Patty's Day celebrating. Maybe I'll do a better job when Boston's older. Some holidays I get all excited about, and others I completely forget about. 

We decided we should try to spread the word about this state park to our friends because it's gorgeous, and it looked like a really fun place to camp. 

We stopped at Subway on the way to the park and had a picnic, and then walked around the trails. 

I wanted to get some good pictures of the purple flowers for my mom because I know she likes purple flowers. :) Here you go mom. 

Seeing all the families camping there made me homesick because we went camping all the time as a family. It also made Scott and I want to go camping! We're hoping to go sometime within these next few weeks. 

We used the self timer to get a family picture in the middle of the flower field, but that was before....

We saw a nasty snake on the trail. Scott had read somewhere that we needed to watch out for snakes, but he thought they would be harmless little garden snakes. Uh, not so much. I was completely freaked out when I saw this snake and wouldn't walk by until it slithered it's nasty little self back into the bushes. Scott walked right past it and it kept opening it's mouth like you see in the picture. I wasn't about to go anywhere near it with Boston even if Scott did successfully cross it's path. I wanted to turn around and go back the way we came, but Scott got a stick and scared it back into the bushes. Then he was being a guy and taking pictures of it, and throwing stuff at it because he liked to watch it's tail rattle. 

  
After that we stayed far away from the bushes, and our next family picture was on the trails outside the bushes. I can't believe we were actually walking around in those bushes before! I'm so glad nobody stepped on a snake! 

  
Boston thought seeing the snake was pretty exciting though and he really wanted to see another one. He carried some flowers around the rest of the time we were walking because he said he wanted to feed them to the brown snake. He kept asking where it went. I was glad we didn't see another one, although Boston was disappointed. 

Sometimes I wonder if Boston's too old for naps, but whenever we do long family outings like this, I'm reminded that he still needs his naps. :) We could tell while we were walking that he definitely needed a nap because of all his little meltdowns. He zonked out about 5 minutes after we got in the car to head home. 

It was such a fun family day. We're loving Texas this time of year, and hopefully we can soak up a lot more outdoor activities before they soak us. :)