Lake Catherine State Park

Well, we’re back, sort of… Tommy’s home and the kids and I detoured to Dallas to extend our vacation at my sister’s house. Tori and I will go to a college visit on Monday to UNT.

We didn’t leave by 5:14 on Saturday as we'd hoped (previous blog post) but at 5:30 but we got off and the trip was a blast! Not without it’s normal family frustrations but overall, it was a wonderful vacation!

Lake Catherine is our most favorite family vacation spot. We got to spend four days there in a fully stocked cabin with linens and all. All we have to bring is our clothes and food. We’ve gone to Lake Catherine during the summer for over 10 years with only missing a couple of summers here and there because life got in the way. We started camping there when Tori and Jakeb were really young in a tent in the primitive camp sites and gradually upgraded to tenting in the sites with water and electricity and then a pop-up camper until we finally got to stay in our first cabin. We were hooked! We decided it was worth saving up the money to go “cabining” rather than camping.

In previous years, Jakeb and Anna caught their first fish at Lake Catherine and we’ve just made tons of great family memories there. Hopefully we’ll still be going there when our kids’ spouses and our grandkids can join us. What a treat to be able to even think about making new memories at Lake Catherine with our kids and their kids!

It rained for most of our time there but that did not stop us from having a good time. The waterfall that is usually only a trickle was jammin’! Hiking the trails is always a must and the trickling waterfall is a must see but this time it was a daily visit packed with risk-taking fun. All the "kids" jumped off the cliff of the waterfall into the pool below multiple times. The kids would probably say it was the most fun we’ve ever had there.

Tommy and Jakeb ran the trails, we slept in, sat on the screened in back porch with our morning coffee – what could be better??? We weren’t able to rent a canoe as we usually do and we didn’t get to fish (this is the first year we’ve gone in two cars rather than a van or SUV so we couldn’t fit fishing poles) but we ate good food, played games (lots of games!), watched a movie and played and swam in the rain. Good times!

Here are a few things I learned along the way…

1. Giraffe’s only sleep 20 minutes per day. I know, that’s random…..
2. When a teenager needs to go to the bathroom on a long road trip, the words to every
song that plays magically changes until said teenager finds relief.
3. 3 games of Phase 10 is probably a good limit. We played 4!
4. “Cabining” is definitely the way to spend time at a lake.
5. Red Raspberry Diet Rite makes the biggest burps.
6. Rain cannot stop the Stunz family from having fun!

Pics of the trip to follow…