Mother's Day Hike

It seems spring has officially settled into the Chicago area; trees are blooming and flowers are popping up all over.

As it happened, the first weekend where our availability and nice weather synced up was Mother's Day weekend. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with that holiday, but this year I decided the best way to celebrate my mom-ness was to do something I enjoyed with my favorite people (those who made me a mom). So, hiking we went!

We've had a lot of rain for the last few weeks, but it cleared up nicely a couple days before the weekend. So, though the rivers were high, the trails were clean and dry. The rain had really pushed the spring along.. it was gorgeous!

I really like this forest preserve; there's lots of trails of varying lengths. They're well marked and easy to follow, and we often run into wildlife. Seeing deer is pretty common:

But this time we saw a little family of ducks! They were well camouflaged in the weeds and hard to see in this picture, but there were several cute little ducklings following dutifully behind their mom:

The boys were so funny.. we took a short trail (just over a mile), and they pretty much complained about their legs being tired the whole way (while running and climbing and jumping, between the walking). Happily there were little shelters sprinkled about for them to "rest their bodies."  Then, despite all their protestations, once we'd finished the loop, they both wanted to go again!

It was one of the best Mother's Days yet. I think we've found a winner of a tradition.