Hiking at the Palos Forest Preserve

We had a hard time passing up the opportunity to take advantage of the great weather we had today. To celebrate Easter weekend, the end of spring break, and the warmer temperatures, we set out to explore a forest preserve just outside the city.  There are entire networks of trails scattered throughout Chicagoland, and we definitely look forward to exploring some more, especially once the landscape looks a little more pretty and green. 

Jesse was a champion hiker.  I think the loop we chose was about 2 miles, and we think he hiked about 75% of that.  James carried him the rest of the way.  Of course, Jesse's pace is much slower than ours, so the short hike took up the entire morning, but it was fun to imagine everything from his perspective.

The first part of the trek (as well as some subsequent parts) was quite muddy from the snow melt, and we all came home with mud-caked shoes and muddy pants.  Jesse loved walking through the mud, though.

Disclaimer: As I looked through the pictures, I realized that in the majority of the pictures I took (most are not posted here), Jesse is playing with his belly button. We did not encourage this, and I guess I must be so used to his belly button fixation now, that I just don't even think about it.  I think it must be the equivalent of a pacifier for him.