We took advantage of the glorious weather on Sunday to go for our first hike as a family of four.  We love Double Rock Park, which is just a super-short drive from our house.  The stream was pretty full so Ellie had lots of fun throwing rocks!

Of course, Mark slept through most of his first hike. 🙂  We’ll tell him about it later on.

“A BIG rock!”

pointing at Baby Mark (the only way we could get her to look at the camera)

And although the whole point of going to Double Rock was being in the woods, of course Ellie talked about the slides the most!  Mark just enjoyed the sunshine, as did his mama.

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 My goal for this year is to go to Double Rock Park once a week.  I want Ellie (and eventually Mark) to become intimately familiar with a place that is not paved, that’s at least a little bit wild.  We are blessed to have this park so close to us and I think going consistently will help us be good observers and “enjoyers” of this place. We’re going to start a nature journal and see what we learn!

My cousin Karyn, her boys, their nature journals, and their creek have been an inspiration to me in this regard.

The book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv was also an important read for me in shaping my ideas about this.  I didn’t realize until I read that book that until I was almost 21, (when I lived in Washington, DC during college), I had lived my whole life within easy walking distance of wilderness (or at least the woods). Even when we lived in a relatively big town, our house touched the woods. I had never thought about how that had shaped me and my interactions with myself, others, and the world. Now, with two children of my own, I’m sad that they won’t easily be able to “play in the woods” like we did all the time as kids. We will have to consciously create those experiences for Ellie and Mark.  We’re starting with Double Rock.