So my BFF has discovered another great hiking spot, this time right outside of downtown Birmingham. She and her family explored Ruffner Mountain Nature Park last week, and really enjoyed it. And I lucked out in googling the nature park on the one day of the month that they offer a craft, story time and animal encounter to preschoolers! To make it even better, Caleb and Ethan's favorite triplets were at story time, too :) I didn't get to explore the nature park as much as I would have liked, since it was pretty muddy and mosquito-ridden from the weekend's rains (and I also prefer a better adult-to-child ratio when hiking); but from what I saw, Ruffner Mountain Nature Park is a great find.
The only problem I am having with all this time in the great outdoors is that the boys are FULL of questions about the trees, plants, bugs and sounds in the woods. I wish that I had taken more classes and learned more about that kind of stuff, so that I could teach them more. That is one reason why I so love going camping and hiking with my BFF. She was a wildlife biology major in college, and she is constantly pointing out sounds and critters and plants and teaching the kids about them. I remember doing extensive insect collections, leaf collections and even animal print casting with my mom when she was getting her degree and I was in grade school, but I didn't pay as much attention to the names of things, and I certainly don't remember them now. I bought a few field guides this spring, and I'm skimming through them when I have time, but it is all a bit overwhelming to me.
Regardless, we spent a beautiful morning outside, and the boys had more fun jumping off rocks with the triplets (while Mr. Al spent thirty minutes taking them one at a time on back-to-back bathroom runs) than they would have had listening to me pontificate about wildlife :)
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