Last Hike of the year

Keegan and the boys found a new place to hike nearby a few weeks back while I was editing photos - it's a quaint little island just miles from our house right on the Mississippi! We picked a great last day of the year for a hike. It was chilly, but manageable for us all. It makes us look forward to the camping season for sure. We are all able to somehow find a place of peace out walking in nature (Ok, most of the time :-)

There was a think layer of ice covering the Mississippi along the shore, so I took the boys out to break the top of it with sticks - and this spells F-U-N for a 3 & 5 year old let me tell you!

After finding an old house that used to be on the island, sliding and throwing rocks across the ice, I asked for one selfie family picture to remember our fun hike - guess who didn't like this request? I am trying, really trying to let it go - so we took it without him!

 But I managed to get a couple of him doing his thing......

 He was pretty excited to get to walk Daisy himself along the path.

 He really had to tug when she saw all the birds though - LOL

 And after driving 10 miles to go to a favorite riverside restaurant, it was closed...... so we stopped in at a local corner bar/diner where the boys were excited to eat "snack" type food for lunch :-)