Mother's Day Hike

For most of Mother's Day we were on our own. Eric was in Seattle at a convention and Justin (in the Midwest from DC) was in Chicago seeing his grad school friends. We got together with Andrew, Alison and Tad for a picnic at city park later in the evening. But it was such a pretty day we decided to go for our traditional MD hike. We have been doing this since our boys were toddlers. (Father's Day is canoeing.) We went to Shades State Park, about 45 minutes away. 

 

We went on our favorite trail down the canyon to Sugar Creek. It hadn't rained in awhile so there wasn't a lot of water in the little creek. It has since rained a bunch! I'm sure it's quite different this weekend:)  

The way down was full of ferns and wildflowers. Everything was so green and pretty.

We finally got to the creek. Isn't it pretty?  I'm sure this beach is covered in water now. But it was perfect for searching for crinoids and geodes. And little toads.

After an hour or so we headed back. We decided to go up out of the creek valley by a different trail - millions of steps! I was worn out by the time we got to the top. But not too tired to enjoy more flowers.

To top off a great day we got to see this sweetie:

I missed our other boys, but it was a wonderful Mother's Day!