Brown County State Park

Last weekend we decided to go on a little mini camping trip to enjoy some of the beautiful areas surrounding Bloomington. Tom left work early on Friday and we drove to Brown County State Park which is about 20 minutes from where we live. We had been there once before for the Kelley Kids picnic where Ainsley got to ride a pony. It is a beautiful park with rolling hills, tons of trees, and tiny lakes. We set up camp and then drove around to explore the park. We visited the Nature Center where they had a room where you could watch birds. They placed tons of bird feeders outside the window and you could sit and watch them feed. There were tons of them and Ainsley had blast looking at them. They would come right up to the window. There was a cardinal that kept running into the window like it was trying to get inside. Then we went on a tiny nature walk around a small pristine lake. Then we took Ainsley to the playground at the campground. She loves to go to playgrounds to swing, and go down the slides. She also enjoyed playing in a tiny playhouse and going on the see saw for the first time. Afterwards we headed back to camp to have dinner.

The first lake we walked around

Hanging out with dad
I love Tom's face in this picture

Riding the see saw with Daddy

Always loves the swings
Ainsley kept squatting down to peer through the cracks of the little playhouse at us. It was pretty funny.

After the playground we headed back to camp to cook dinner. It was a nice campground but didn't give us much privacy. We could hear and see all of our neighbors. We ate dinner then sat around the campfire. Ainsley's favorite part about camp was picking up all of the gravel and stacking it on the chairs and picnic table for us. Her little fingernails were caked with dust. We put her to bed early and were so excited when she fell asleep easily. We were a bit nervous about taking a one year old camping but she slept through night. At about 5:45, the sun rose and she thought it was morning and started crawling all over us. We just laid her back on her bed and in a few minutes she fell back asleep. We all woke up around 8:00.

Ainsley hanging out at camp....don't know why the silly face?
Cooking breakfast the next morning. Notice Ainsley is "helping" stack gravel for us...she's such a good helper:)

This little guy kept trying to creep up into camp after dinner

Hanging out in the tent

After breakfast then headed out for another hike. We hiked down to Ogle Lake and walked around it. It was absolutely beautiful. After the hike, we packed up camp and drove to another lookout for a picnic before heading home. It was a short trip, but beautiful and lots of fun.

Hike to Ogle Lake

During the hike I kept seeing these "bugs" jump out of the way while we were walking, I stopped to look down at them and realized they were tiny tree frogs. They were so little!

Ogle Lake