We had ONE glorious day without sports last weekend and the weather was beautiful so we decided to tackle another hike from our favorite book (found here)! We are about 20 hikes in and our goal (idea stolen from a friend) is to do all 60 hikes before Bailey graduates high school! I think we will easily do this but we really only hike in the late fall and winter so it limits our time each year. I am SO excited hiking season is upon us though – it’s my favorite!
It was definitely a STEEP climb! But the views were SO worth my heart almost beating out of my chest! HA!
Parker loves to run ahead and then find a spot on the trail (or off it) to be totally relaxing while we slow pokes finally catch up! She cracks herself up every time!
This one – she’s stealing my heart these days. Such great conversations we’ve been having and her sweet spirit shows through in truly incredible ways.
But together – these two are unstoppable! My sister is my friend, confidant and everything that’s great about having a sister but it wasn’t always this great. When we were Bailey and Parker’s age we fought like cats and dogs. I have no idea why God gave me girls that love each other so fiercely but they do and I feel lucky everyday to learn how to be kind from them.
Gray has hit that silly 7 year old stage and sometimes he has my sides hurting from laughing so hard and other times I want to send him to go live somewhere else! But then of course he knows just when to come give me a hug to win me back!
I got WAY off topic! Sorry! Should have given a happy mom alert or something! I totally recommend this hike – it was gorgeous all around!
After our hike we ended up in this TINY town called Prairie du Rocher, IL for lunch. There we met the owner of the restaurant who told us about a re-enactment happening at a fort about 4 miles away. TOTALLY not how we had planned to spend the rest of our day but how do you pass that up? So we headed to Fort de Chartes and HAD A BLAST!
Everyone was in full costume and NEVER broke character while we were there! It was so cool!
I was asking some people if I could photograph them and when I asked this guy he said sure, grabbed Parker and told her to look scared! HA! I had NO idea he was going to do that but it was perfect!
Kim – SO many women were crocheting I kept thinking of you!
The fort was built by the French for the French/Indian War and then later sold/given (?) to the English according to one gentleman that was answering Bailey’s questions – we need to Google this place obviously because the history sounds pretty amazing!
We let each kid buy one thing and Gray bought this cross-bow (rubber arrows) – he is IN LOVE with this thing! Best $10 we’ve ever spent I think!
My love language is road trips, finding random things along the way and taking the time to stop to enjoy them. Sunday couldn’t have made my heart any happier! We had an awesome hike, drove back roads most of the way to and from, ate at a cute little restaurant (that fries EVERYTHING), the girls got to ride in a miniature buggy pulled by miniature horses owned by the 10 year old son of the restaurant owner (!), the kids all used a WORKING telephone booth (SO cool!), we saw our first re-enactment, listened to great music and had awesome conversation along the way. I couldn’t have dreamed of a better day!