Well, I’m back and settling into normal everyday life and dealing with those periodic pesky technical issues that currently center around email. :Gasp: I accidentally deleted my entire blog/book email inbox. So if you have tried to reach me in the last couple of weeks (there are one or two of you), I’d love it if you could resend that email.
It was such a treat to travel to two conventions this month and speak to homeschool families in both Pennsylvania and Michigan. I’m always amazed at the love and care that parents have for their children and grateful for the opportunity to get to help encourage others! I loved getting a quick peek at Pennsylvania. I tend to think of being “back east” as all hustle & bustle city life. The glimpse of rural Pennsylvania was delightful. The following week, we flew out to Michigan. The cool thing about this was that I prayed last summer, asking the Lord to make a way for me to fly out to see my sister. Within a month, I was contacted to come out and speak just an hour and a half away from where she lives! Amazing, right? So we took two extra days to go down and see the kids and explore. The weather could not have been better. There was still a hint of crisp in the air, sunshine and lots of green.
Soon after I arrived my niece and nephew pulled me outside to check out the treasure-in-the-making that they’d discovered. We don’t have robins out here in the desert, so I’ve only seen pictures in books. The tiny eggs are simply exquisite. The kids were so excited and jabbered on about the mama robin and the ensuing wait for these eggs to hatch.
Oh the magic and wonder of getting to witness this miracle unfold – the lessons in life, birth and the waiting… Yes, taking time to observe and WAIT is powerful. It was such a treat to speak on the topic of Nature Walks while I was up there and then follow that up with my sister taking us to her favorite place for nature walking…
We ran down trails, stopped to admire butterflies, played Pooh-Sticks, studied lily pads, tried to catch frogs, managed not to fall into the ponds, and through it all just marveled at God’s beautiful creation.
And all of this made me even more excited to return home. For some reason, I always want to kick our nature walks into high gear come summer. It must be the fact that most people elsewhere are enjoying the outdoors, so I feel that I should be able to as well – despite our high summer heat. So once again, we go “crepuscular” to cope with our summer temperatures and explore the beautiful outdoors. This summer, I’m taking the guess work out of our nature walks with this amazing new resource that I found this spring. We’ll be utilizing Cindy West’s 100+ Easy and Fun Creative Nature Walks. It is so nice to have an open and go resource like this. I’ve already started making a list of the one’s we’ll be utilizing this summer. Since I’m moving back into book writing mode, I’m even more thankful for this easy resource.
If you are wanting to include more nature walks and utilizing the natural world in your learning adventures, then this resource is a great go-to guide that will help keep your nature walks fresh, exciting, and rich without the investment of planning on your part. If you are interested, she has a preview available so you can view the table of contents and see all of the great ideas that she offers.
If anyone else wants to snag this, Cindy gave me a coupon code for $2.95 off! Simply use NatureWalks at checkout! (FYI: the code will only work through the 17th of June.)
Some of my other blog posts on nature walks and nature exploration:
10 Reasons Why You Should Go Outside EVERYDAY!
Nature Mapping the Neighborhood and a Nursery Fieldtrip
The picture of K2 on the log is delightfully filled with energy! Loved the whole post. So glad you got this special time!
I’m so glad you came to visit! God gave us the perfect weather that weekend for nature walks!