Buena Vista Park Hike

Today was another day of adventure :)) I love taking off to explore somewhere, not knowing what may be ahead, and with all the time in the world to go as slow as we want to allow for the depth and the unexpected, called learning :)

We started off with some duck feeding and lake poking :)

Then the group pictures...

And a few individual pics that are too perfect to not share :))

Okay, this one is from yesterday, but it was too good to not share right now :))

This was from yesterday, too LOL

My darling baby today!

After the picture taking session had ended and my cell phone battery was dead, we grabbed the digital camera and started our adventure :))

We found...

this amazing giant tree!



The kids practiced beginning science...

... and I swelled in awe of the sacred feminine in nature ♥

Then...

we found a tree with loooooow branches :))

for Jaja to practice crawling on

And then we found...

a log bridge :))

where Jaja did a happy dance the first time she crossed it alone :))

and then felt courageous enough to race across it!

(so cute while she balances)

and Noble walked across it like the crabs we saw at the beach the other day

Then Jaja decided to plop down in the dirt on the trail and draw some spirals in the sand (she is SO my baby)

Noble had to get in on that :D

Practicing his "b"s for Noble :))

Oh, and THEN...

we found the most awesome natural climbing structure EVER (so far in this outdoor adventure)

and it reinforced a feeling of ability and self-confidence for Noble

He is just so proud of himself ♥

and the baby just chugs right along after him :)))

Then we saw

a quaint little bridge overlooking some water with sticks -- I mean SNAKES in it (well, Noble swore they were snakes LOL)

Jaja needed a better look :))

And then she needed to be carried, so I didn't get any more pics. Another thing I didn't get pics of was when we strayed from the big trail down into a path through the trees. I couldn't help it, my curiosity got the best of me, and I am so glad we did. Even though I ended up walking through a spiderweb and ending up with a spider crawling down my back, it was really an adventure! Off the beaten path, being trailblazers! It brought me immediately back to my youth of playing in canyons and places just like this (maybe the smell of the same kinds of trees played a part in that, too!). It was wonderful to see some beautiful sites and explore some options (for a day when I wasn't in flip-flops) for more adventure.

The wide range of learning really amazed me. Just on that hike, the babies learned math (counting sticks they found, growing in awareness of how time), social studies (having a sense of where we were on a "u" shaped path), science (differentiating between the kinds of birds we saw -- ducks, geese, and another --, picking at plants, talking about different reasons why things were how they were or how they may have gotten that way, observing living things in their natural habitat), motor skills (dancing, running, climbing, writing/drawing, walking), social skills (interacting with fellow hikers and each other, taking turns, helping each other), literacy (we read the signs together that we saw, drew letters in the dirt, and noticed branches that looked like letters), art (drawing in the dirt, recognizing contrasting colors in the plants), and we played the "senses game" where we close our eyes and talk about what we hear, what we smell, what we feel, etc. They got to exercise their imagination muscles with stories about wild animals in the area, and make plans for the future (a couple good picnic areas for future hikes).

Oh yes, this was a fulfilling day, as an unschooling family, as mama in love with her babies, and as a nomad living for experiences that nourish the soul and sweep away the gunk :))