Fun With the Cousins

Em, Jeff, and the girls came out yesterday for the long weekend and we really wanted to do something fun together.  Mother Nature had other ideas, though.  What was a beautiful day of 47 degrees yesterday turned into a day of -1 windchills today!  That didn't stop us though.  We decided to head over to Starved Rock to check out some eagles and we were NOT disappointed!

Madie came down with a fever yesterday, so she and Pete stayed home both from church and from our adventure.  She's feeling ok, but didn't want to push it or cause her to get the girls sick.  We decided to have brunch at the Starved Rock Lodge - something I've always wanted to do, but we couldn't get a table until 1:30 (and that was after calling in a reservation YESTERDAY!  Since we got there about an hour early, after leaving church late even, we decided to go to the Visitor's Center first.  Em, Jeff, and the girls have never been to Starved Rock, so we were excited to show them at least a little bit of the place.

Noah and Livie wanted to show Kendalyn the big fish tank.  She really liked it!

Even Avery was fascinated by it. :-)

We checked out the stuffed owls and saw how their eyes followed you.  We went into the gift shop and looked around a bit before heading back up to the lodge.  We drove everywhere, so we could stay warm.  Just way too cold for any hiking today, though there were people hiking there today.

This is one of our kids' favorite sculptures.  I think Kendalyn liked it too. :-)

The meal was really yummy.  A big brunch buffet that everyone liked.  None of us walked away hungry, let me tell ya!

Had to take a quick picture of the cousins all bundled up, trying to stay warm.

I think this was Jeff's first time seeing a bald eagle in the wild.  He was really impressed!

While we looked at the eagles, all the kids played on this fish.

Kendalyn really liked carrying around the binos and periodically stopping to look through them.

We drove back down to the river to see more eagles.  We even got to see one fly right above us!  It was so cool!!

We were only outside here for a few more minutes before we just got too cold.  You can tell that Noah was already freezing in this picture.  As soon as I took it, he headed back to the car to get warm.  Livie and the rest of us followed soon after.  It was freezing and yucky outside, but we still had a great time!