Mother's Day

Ahh, Mother's Day. It's kind of like a birthday where I feel a little uncomfortable with attention on me, and people being obligated to call, give gifts, etc. At the same time I do appreciate having a day to remember and appreciate my own Mother and Grandmothers, and know that I don't tell them that enough at other times of the year (or often on Mother's day, for that matter)
So, this year we decided to go up to Duluth the day before. We stayed in our favorite Sheraton. We had planned to order pizza and watch a movie after the kiddo went to sleep (we put his crib in the bathroom), but there was pizza in the lounge that evening, and I think the kiddo didn't go to sleep until we were too tired to watch a movie, so we went to bed.
On Sunday, E decided that he wanted to spend every moment of Mother's day with me, and decided to get up at 3:30. After he woke up from his first nap of the day at 7:30, Mike took him so I could get some sleep before our whirlwind tour of MN State Parks. We hit 3 of them. We started at Split Rock, where we hardly got out of the car because E was asleep. Then we drove down to Jay Cooke, famous for their swinging bridge. Here are a few photos.

 Crossing the swinging bridge - it was kind of scary over the raging river! This is just the end - you don't get a full perspective of how long it is.

 Family photo.

 We let E play in the dirt for quite a while. He was a bit tentative at first, but definitely warmed up to it.

Our two wildlife encounters. E got some smooches from a passing dog, and I saw a snake when I went off trail for a bit. We only got a photo of one!

After that, we had mother's day brunch at the Lazy Moose Cafe.

Finally we stopped at Moose Lake State Park. It is really only a lake - nowhere to hike, just a beach and a boat launch. We let E dip his fingers in the water, and went on our way.