frog beach

We took a daytrip to Clear Lake, near Packwood. It was beautiful! We enjoyed a pic-nic lunch by the lake, then took a hike through the surrounding woods. We had to take a little detour down the road to get some mosquito repellant, but after everyone was sprayed down, we continued on.

The kids enjoyed trying to count tree rings and they were very excited over the tree we found that had been chewed down by a beaver. MC dug through the wood shavings, and found a beautiful piece of wood that she named "dove's wing" because of it's shape.

We found a bit of beach a little later that was covered with tiny baby frogs! They were the size of small crickets and there were thousands of them. The kids caught them and chased them, and we wondered at the way they would let the waves take them from the sand to the water where they would pump those little legs to try and swim. I've never seen anything quite like that before. There were just so many of them. So after naming the spot "frog beach", we left for home.

One of my favorite parts of the day had to be the drive through the forest though. You just can't beat the strong, heady smell of pine trees. The hint of woodsmoke mixed in added just the right touch, and made us vow that we will spend many more of our summer weekends in places like this.