Our Walk

School's been out now for almost a week and after a few days at home, doing nothing, we were bored and wanted something to do. So, I loaded up the kids and took them down to Illini State Park, which is a nice little park just south of town - about 5 min away.



First we played on the playground. Madie liked hanging upside-down. :-)

Livie wanted to go down the slide, but was "she was too scary", so she told me. So, Noah went with her and helped her get over the "scary" and she was very excited to go down the slide many more times. What a good big brother!

Then we started our walk. First thing we came across was a snake hole. It was a pretty big snake hole, so I figured it must've been housing more than a little 'ole garter snake, so we kept on walking.

I made them stop so I could get the prerequisite blog photo. This is the first one I took.

This was the second one I took and I was able to get it only because I let them do the one below this...

The scary picture! Livie wanted to be a bad guy, Noah wanted to look scared, and Madie was being a spinosaurus. Eeek!

We walked down by the river and went down towards the west and we had never walked that way before. It was really fun! The campground was full of RVs and we saw a large RV with a bunch of older people sitting outside, chatting and having a good time. They smiled as we walked by. :-) It's such a gorgeous day, that it was just perfect to be outside. What I wouldn't give for an RV like theirs to go try out different campgrounds. I'm not a "tent" person, but an RV with a bathroom and a bed (and a satellite) I could do! Here we came across a section of cute little trees all in a bundle. So, I got each kid to climb it and let me take their picture. Is he a handsome boy?!!

Madie was striking a pose. She had to have a little help to get up in it, but she did and looked so cute!

The trees were spaced just a little too far apart for Livie, so she just stood behind them and had me snap a photo. What a dolly!!!

Just a few feet from the trees we took pictures by, there was this large stone circle thing. I'm guessing a fire pit, maybe? Guess they are so blogified now that they actually will point out to me where to take pictures now. They thought this was a good spot. You can see the river in the background. They liked walking around the circles edge and balancing as they went.

Then we came to this new park bench. The river is lined with benches, but this one was special. It had the roof and was really neat looking.

They loved this tree. Thought it was so cool that it was hollow inside. They found little mushrooms growing in it.

And, of course, no nature walk would be complete without finding a ladybug. And, this was a REAL ladybug. Red with black spots and all. We then walked back around and went to the eastern side of the river and found a small path that led to another area we had never been. We saw several birds down here (which I'm sure my dad would've LOVED!) and I even saw something quickly scurry by. Looked like a groundhog, but I wasn't sure. All in all it was a fun way to break up the monotony of our day at home. Plus, they were able to collect cool pinecones and stuff as well.