Quick trip to Frederickburg

The kids got Good Friday off from school, so we packed up some stuff and headed out to Fredericksburg, TX for some hiking, biking, wine tasting, and brats.

We drove up on Thursday evening so we could get a head start on the fun on Friday morning.  Unfortunately, by the time we actually got up, had breakfast and headed out to Enchanted Rock for the hiking part of our plan, the park was full!  I had never heard of a state park being full before, but since there was a line of cars parked on the highway leading to the entrance, we decided to rearrange our schedule a little and go to the wineries first and come back in the late afternoon for our hike.

On the way to the wineries, we found some bluebonnets to force the kids to sit in and have their pictures taken.  It's a rite of passage for all children living in Texas...

Again, with the Bluebonnets?!

After taking a million pictures with the Bluebonnets, we headed on to the wineries for some wine tasting (and buying) and then made our way to have a late lunch at Alamo Springs Cafe, home of the "Best Burger in Texas".  Well, since I haven't tried all of the burgers in Texas, I can't say it was the best, but it was definitely good!  :)

We finally made it to Enchanted Rock for the second time at about 5:30 - perfect timing for a late afternoon/sunset hike!

The kids didn't let the slope and rocks slow them down at all.

Mountain Goats

It's so pretty in that part of the state that we had to stop and take several pictures on the way up, but it's really hard to capture it.

Yo

'Sup?

We made it to the top in about 20 minutes!  The husband and I were wheezing along behind the kids, who exclaimed something like, "That's it?! I wanted to climb more!"

We had to get them to curb their enthusiasm a little bit, though, because we got there just in time to witness a sunset marriage proposal and we didn't want them to wreck it.  (She said yes!)

We had to re-enact the same picture that we took the last time we were there...

 

 

Some of these feet seem to have grown.

And then we had a little fun with the camera angle on the way down.  ;)

Whoa!

The evening finished by stopping by the Altdorf Biergarten for a beer and a couple of bratwurst, but we were still so full from our late lunch that we had to split an appetizer order.  What a shame.

While we were tasting the wines that afternoon, one of the girls pouring wine for us mentioned that there was a somewhat new bourbon distillery in the area, so we made it a point to stop there for a tour on the way to mountain biking the next morning!

One of the stills - not sure if this one was "Fat Man" or "Little Boy"

Yum

And then we were off for some mountain biking at Pedernales Falls State Park.  But we kind of forgot that the terrain in the Hill Country is actually pretty hilly!  The kids had a hard time riding up the hills in the park.  Plus, it was actually a really hot day.  This picture was taken after a rather long hill.

Our family motto: Torture them early and often.

We made it back to Houston on Saturday evening and on Sunday morning, we headed off to church.

Much happier and well-rested