Free Unstructured Play Outside

I have been trying to make it a point lately to get my kids outdoors for plenty of unstructured free play time. There is a wooded area near our house that we make a short hike to and then just set up camp. It is perfect because there are two pretty steep hills on either side for the kids to run down and two trails off into the woods as well. There is a perfect fallen tree for me to sit on and read.

No organized crafts, no organized sports, no pressure, no screens, no mommy playing with them. Just free unhurried time to be kids outside in a natural and interesting environment. They love it. I love it. Everyone gets along. It just doesn't get any better than that!

But first we had to visit our absolute favorite dogs (and pups) at the dairy farm.

 I had to tell Mirek that, despite their size, they are not horses.

 Into the woods.

 And back home for my coffee stout.

Saturday and Memories

Lately I have been thinking about how to spend the holidays. I LOVE this time of year and want to spend every day immersed in the holiday spirit. However, I will talk about this more in a future post. Thinking about making memories led me to read some of my old journals and I wanted to share some of what I wrote here. I think my parents will get a kick out of reading it. I left out the more serious and inappropriate stuff lol. Still excuse some of the language. I was anywhere from 17 to maybe 22 years old.

First of all, here are some pictures from Saturday. Naia had her end of season softball tournament and we visited with my mom. The weather has been cold!

Ade had to work on Saturday, but I still got all of the kids out to the field by 8:00 am! I thought about skipping a few times.

 Naia was very excited to get her very own medal after seeing Eaden get so many in gymnastics.

 Naia's team lost the first two games in their tournament (yes!) so we went to visit Grandma.

The kids found a frog smushed under a log.

 They collected grubs, worms, and slugs.

 Played nerf gun war.

Mirek is attempting to walk on the "bridge."

 This picture is from today, but I'm unloading the camera so here it is. In the 30's!

 And a few excerpts from my journals.

I was going to try to put them in order, but it is proving too time consuming.

This is from a journal I kept while visiting Banff in Alberta. I went there for a hockey camp when I was 17.

This is from my countdown to Alaska journal. I was about to move to Alaska without ever having been there before. I thought this was funny because of what I wrote about my mom.

In Alaska.

 

9-11 happened while I was living in Alaska.

After moving back to Texas, I saved up to take a backpacking trip in Denali.

This next part is for my mom. Sorry it is a little blurry.

This is from when I went camping at Big Bend by myself.

Here is a bit from my journal when I was working at the cannery in Homer. I was staying with a friend and working crazy hours. Pretty much from 6am until whenever we got off. Lots of overtime and a ton of entertaining characters!

Keep diaries! They are so fun to read later on.