Burr Oak Woods

We headed out to Burr Oak Woods for a morning hike on Saturday. The weather was perfect. It's no Rocky Mountain National Park, but it was surprisingly really cool. I can't believe we never even knew it was here. There are a lot of trails, so we will be back. I'd love to go back in a couple of weeks when the leaves start to turn. There was a pretty good sized area on the trail we went on that had a lot of large rocks for climbing, so Noah was loving it!

Dad & his boys before our hike

Noah at the trailhead

He lead the way. Shortly after this we saw two deer pretty up close. My camera focused on the woods around them though, so nothing worthy of posting.

Me & my little hiker

Little guy having fun

He was making me so nervous trying to keep up with Noah

Noah was excited about this "secret passageway"

Up and down many rocks. Definitely Noah's favorite part.

Exploring. The most exciting thing they probably found were daddy-long-leg spiders and Noah was excited about some berries, too.

They also are huge fans of bridges. Elliot would run back and forth over them.

A little fancy footwork while we waited for Paul & Elliot to catch up. Noah insisted we "get our exercise" and run for part of the hike. Elliot was setting the pace with Paul after our lunch stop so we had some time to kill.

When I saw Paul carrying Elliot with the backpack on, I suddenly had flashbacks to Noah when he was almost 2 in Colorado, refusing the backpack and also refusing to go forward. But, Paul said he did great and he had just picked him up. We had him in the pack for the beginning of the hike, but he walked most of it.

Naturally, E had to climb up the bridge and scare me, while Paul insisted I leave him there for a picture. It was about a 15 foot drop, so you will notice my protective hand ready to save him :)

This was at the end of our hike. The boys just played on the bridge for a long time.