Summer Bucket List: Nature Preserve!

Okay, peeps.

No doubt about it, now. Summer is HERE!

We’ve been such a solid family unit this weekend—tackling chores, some light errands, movies (galore!) and just lots of time at home. All things we desperately needed!

Sometime next week, I’ll share a bigger picture post about our summer intentions, but for now, I’ll just say that we’ve been checking off a few bucket list items—woohoo!

Like…exploring the nature preserve that has an entrance behind our property! Something we haven’t done since the first spring we lived here—more than six years ago! Isn’t that wild? How does the time fly?

My babies were so tiny when we first moved here and we went exploring. It was such a magical excursion, and honestly, I have no idea why we haven’t made it a regular thing!

https://delappenings.blogspot.com/2019/04/nature-preserving-some-sanity.html?m=1

Little Man, in particular, was really excited to go on this adventure. We decided on a Saturday morning that was a bit overcast. The best weather we’re going to get now that it’s nearly June!

Fun fact: I just realized last week that we have morning glories! Isn’t that a hilarious discovery after so many years living here? We said hello to them as we passed on our way…



I’ll be honest, there are a lot of things that live in the nature preserve, so we don’t venture in there without a big stick of some sort. And I forced to the kiddos to wear pants, making Chicklet quite cranky, but they were glad about it when we had to crawl through some prickly situations, ha. If only the hubby had listened to me, too!

I tried to recreate a couple of our pics from six years ago. Again, I can’t get over the passing of time…

It’s so cool to have this whole little wonderland back behind our property. We followed along on the phone map to head in the right direction, but there are lots of ways to explore. There are some painted yellow rocks to help lead the way, and I was happy to see that they still exist.

There are some open fields with flowers and some narrow paths through a lot of brush. It’s really fun.





Plus, lots of animal tracks!







We ventured away from the yellow rock path to this nifty area that probably turns into a stream when it rains. It has this natural-looking semi-circle mini amphitheater seating area. I have NO doubt some teenagers spend time up to no good in this area, ha.





Chicklet was a bit funny during our outing. Very uncomfortable with us straying too far from the yellow stones and a bit spooked at times. Plus, she remained a bit cranky about the pants, ha. She pulled it together by the end—I’m just not sure that she’ll be begging to go back in, anytime soon, ha.







We took a funny shortcut out by crawling under the fence line instead of walking out the door that we hysterically missed.

It’s always so comical to walk out and be in some neighbor’s driveway, appearing like you’re returning from Narnia, ha.

But, we made it! No worse for the wear! And just down the street. :)





I spent the afternoon catching up on laundry, but we had the best family movie viewing of the 2017 Jumanji. The kiddos loved it, and we actually started the second one, tonight.

We’ve been enjoying more playroom time, lately, thanks to Coda being a bit more trustworthy up there with us. Plus, I finally added some artwork to the walls (more on that, later).



Nothing better than laughs and snuggles, and nowhere to be. :)







The hubby and I managed to sneak off to go see Final Reckoning on Saturday (amazing; surprisingly emotional), the whole crew of us went to see Lilo & Stitch earlier today (sooooo adorable), and with the Jumanji movies, it’s been a banner cinema weekend! The perfect way to jumpstart summer. :)

We’ll be tackling more bucket list items this week, and I can’t wait.

Bring on the summer fun!

Happy Memorial Day, peeps.

Over and out.