Earth Day Festival

On Saturday we headed to an outdoor children's festival that some of my mom friends recommended. It was at a lovely way to celebrate Earth Day. The location was at Woodland Discovery, a local organization that runs a preschool, summer camp, and other outdoor activities. The event included painting, fishing, a guided hike, and more. For a random free event at a place we had never visited, our expectations were low. I think Jesse and I were both surprised at how much fun everyone had.

The first thing that caught the kids' interest was painting. Bowls of paint and easels with paper were easily accessible. It was a small miracle that none of the toddlers dumped bowls of paint over or covered themselves in paint.

You know Maddie is having fun when a light wind doesn't stop her from painting.

As we moved across the field to another activity, we heard a woman shout quite fearfully, "There's a snake!" It was a harmless black snake, but very long. A crowd grew to watch the snake move from the creek, across the entire field.

There were guided tours, but we chose to go on our own because we weren't sure how far we could get with the wagon.

Throughout the event we referenced the scavenger hunt we were given. The organizers gave each family a list at registration. Once completed we could turn it in for a prize. The list gave us purpose and excitement at discovering acorns, dandelions, etc.

The trio had a spontaneous snack at one of the stations. I'm not sure how threading cheerios on pipe cleaners relates to nature, but this was a favorite activity, especially for James.

Jackson was more excited in making paint by mixing wood ashes and dye.

There were huge furniture and refrigerator boxes set up as playhouses that the kids could crawl inside or paint the exterior.

One of the stranger activities was a bird watch. We all climbed the treehouse, looked through binoculars, and spotted birds. The strange part was the bird sights were various stuffed animal birds scattered among the trees.

The trio were content, but the event certainly had more activities for older kids. Thankfully the hike was wagon friendly. There was only one spot where we had to lift the wagon over a fallen tree. The toddlers walked most of the time but sat in the wagon when they were tired.

Jackson balanced on ropes courses, 

and even ziplined.

The most interesting part of our hike was seeing this deer carcass. We overheard one of the guides explaining that the dead deer was spotted three weeks ago. Funny note about this picture: Jackson asked me to take a picture. He was smiling really big and I told him it was a bit odd that he was so happy beside a dead deer. He said, "Okay. How about I look scared?"

We spent so long hiking and exploring the woods that we didn't get a chance to go fishing. There were poles, bait, and whatever else you need to go fishing set up until noon. Jackson was a little disappointed that he didn't get to fish, but we had plenty of other fun things to make up for it.

Jackson turned in his scavenger hunt. He received a key chain, fake tattoo, and wildlife poster.