August 12, 2012

Today was family day!  Kyle came home last night and we decided to spend a day as a family today.  Kelley had to work at 4 so we had to leave pretty early.  We decided to go to Starved Rock because we had never been there before and it was supposedly one of the best hiking places or something in Illinois.  Kyle wanted to see a lot of nature since he lives in the city so that's why we chose to do this.  We wanted to leave at 6 but of course those plans never really work so we left at 6:30ish instead.  We stopped at a nice diner on the way there and everybody's food was good except for mine haha.  I got biscuits and gravy and the gravy tasted like bland glue....soooo...yeah.  Then we headed on over to Starved Rock!  It was a cool day out which was good because we were getting hot while walking on the trails.  There was this guy with this giant 150 pound dog and after we saw him the first time, we kept running into him over and over again and he kept repeating his story of his dog to everybody we met so we could tell you all about his stupid dog by the end of our hike.  Here's a nice sibling picture that we took:

For some reason, we decided it would be a good idea to take the picture standing on the platform for the binoculars...those aren't meant for three people....which is why I'm falling off....  And then Mom and Dad took a cute picture:

Awww how cute!  We walked around the starved rock portion in the beginning which is where we took these two pictures, and then we went on the trails and looked at different look outs.  The places overlooked canyons and the Illinois River.  Since Illinois has been in the drought, there was absolutely no water flowing in the canyons or in the tiny streams that were supposed to be next to the paths but it ended up being okay because that means there were no bugs!  The total amount we walked was about 3 miles and it was really nice!  After that, we decided to get ice cream but I turned that down because I was still digesting my breakfast glue.  Then Kyle introduced the family to geocaching and there happened to be three in the area where we were.  Here is us at the first place:

The thing ended up not being there and we think it is because that corner was recently under construction and everything could have been moved around.  And here is us at the second place:

We also didn't find the thing here either but the place where Dad is looking is where it was supposed to be.  At the third place, we did find a film canister!!  I didn't take pictures but it was hidden in a tree and Kyle signed our names on the slip inside.  We also left a tiny fuse thing and a tiny hairband because there was nothing better to leave in our car...so yeah.  On the way home, we all fell asleep except for Dad because he was driving.  It was such a lovely day spending time with my fam!!  I love them!