Taking in some "nature"

Swimming, baseball, softball, teeball, bike rides, backyard campfires and games, zoo days, sprinklers & kiddie pools, and popsicles...lots of popsicles. Summer is off to a beautiful start!
Looking to keep the troops from getting the "B" word (dare I hear, bored) we planned a special Nature Hike today. 

Of course any good hiker knows planning is the key.  So we started the morning preparing our trail snacks...cheerios strung onto dental floss necklaces...portable, yummy, and promotes healthy gums.  Awesome.

These were a bigger hit than I might have imagined.  Even Anne loved it...though she kept eating the floss and gagging it back up.  Not cool.  No more edible necklaces for the little one.

Charlie found the first "seashell."  I use that term loosely...we were nowhere near the sea.  But it's still pretty cool for Lake Loramie.

Only 7 of the kids came along this time.  Certainly this is something I'm going to have to come to terms with for the summer.  It's the first time my older ones are going their own ways...and I'm not yet sure how to feel about that.  Excited and sad all at once.  Guess "bittersweet" covers it.  I'm realizing that the days/moments we all spend together as a close little family are going to be fewer and further between all the time.  And I get a little sad as I imagine further down the road when we struggle to get us all together for anything...holidays, etc. 

Everyone was excited to find goose feathers...Charlie and Frank were first.  This is NATURE!
(not so excited about dodging all the goose poop...but that goes with the territory.)

This is NOT nature...just an old abandoned beat-up lawn chair we found along the way. We had fun imagining who might have left it behind...or whehter they might still be coming back for it.  Charlie's face in this picture is priceless...

Pieces of Duct tape wrapped inside out on the wrist made a perfect way to collect and display little bits of nature along the way.  Just pick and stick (with caution).  Charlie was bummed that his Budweiser bottle cap fell off just before taking this picture.  (Somewow beer is nature?!)

Not sure what got to this tree; insects or animals, but it was cool peeking in the holes...like maybe trolls might have left behind some treasure.  Lucy was bummed there was nothing to be found inside.

What are you doing to stay busy and have fun this summer?  We've started a list of things we want to do this year.  In the past it was always a giant paper rolled out with lists of places to go, things to see and do.  This year, it's in a notebook and thanks to the older 3 kids it also includes science experiments like "Build a Volcano that Explodes" and research papers like "Exploring the Monuments of Washington DC"   Seriously...some of my kids want to do research this summer...and write about it.

I'm on board with that, but hesitant.  Seriously...it's summer...slow down and enjoy because life is moving FAST and I want to soak in these simpler times before they're gone.

Peace.