Lucky 7

I'll admit, I set him up perfectly.

When Sarah and I met our friend Jane at Starved Rock State Park for the day with our combined 7 children under the age of 7, we had no idea how it would actually go.  Added to the daily mystery of any particular child's behavior was the fact that none of us had ever been there before.  So we headed straight to the visitor's center for a potty break, a map, and advice.  I asked the nice ranger guy sitting at the information desk what he would recommend for three moms of 7 kids six and under.

"Um.  Two aspirin.  And a visit to the bar in the lodge."

I think he was mostly kidding.

So we headed out on some kid-friendly trails (not the ones with the sheer drop offs on one side...) with some positive attitudes, low expectations, and an unspoken willingness to let everyone get really dirty.

It was awesome!

The only man-made toys the kids played with all day were two balls Eli had brought along for the ride (of course) which they only used for about five minutes, and two plastic spoons Jane had in her lunch bag for digging in the dirt.  God provided the rest.

Throwing rocks into the creek.  It's all fun and games until someone gets a rock to the head.

One of the funniest moments of the day came when the moms decided we needed a picture of the three of us, so we each gave our camera to our oldest and let them have at it.  We have about a dozen hilarious shots as we tried to instruct and smile all at the same time.  I think this might be the best one of the the group except for the speck of dust on the lens.

The boys.

I was on a quest to find a waterfall after I read about them on the web site.  We finally found one on the last leg of our last hike.  So fun and out of the ordinary for these kids.

Actually on top of Starved Rock.
Ironically, we had just had a little snack.

And 7 hours later we were done.  I don't know how far we actually hiked but I'm guessing the bigger kids legged three miles or so.  Add to that a bunch of rock climbing, creek stomping, and general zig-zagging around and who knows how far they went.

At the end of the day the kids were declaring it the "Best Day Ever!", and after the less than 7 minutes it took my children to fall asleep that night, I couldn't agree more!