Nature Walk

We have had such beautiful weather lately! The perfect way to enter fall - sunshine, crisp air, and mild temperatures...you'll hear no complaints from me! Sunday was such a nice day outside, so Matt and I decided to take Siena for a walk in Burr Oaks Nature Center. There's a perfect little loop that is paved and the stroller works really well on it. Siena didn't see much of the nature...she slept peacefully amidst the bumps and cracks. We stopped a couple of times to take a few pictures and enjoy the view. Fortunately, the only wildlife we saw were a few squirrels and bugs. I say fortunately because the last walk I was on, I saw WAY more wildlife that I care to EVER see!
A friend of mine and I were walking our little ones earlier this week and 2 HUGE (seriously, enormous!) wild turkeys came scampering out of the woods and one darted out right in front of our strollers. It scared me half to death - we were not expecting a very large creature to jump out at us! And to make matters MUCH worse, a little later down the path, a disgusting, long, red and black snake made his way along our path. He was just napping on the path...but there was NO WAY I was going to get close enough to the snake to move him out of the way. I contemplated throwing a stick at him to move him, and we almost turned around and walked the other way, but he eventually slithered into the brush. It was long...it was colorful...it was a snake. And that's disgusting! I can handle birds and squirrels and chipmunks along the nature walk - anything else, stay where you are!! :)
Our Sunday walk reminded me of when I was little. Pappa, Emilie and I would go to the nature center and Amon Park all the time on Sunday afternoons. When TV, stores, restaurants, sports, etc. were not an option on Sunday, good old Mother Nature always offered fun for us on those peaceful afternoons. It also reminded me of the famous "leaf collection" that I think every child had to collect sometime during their schooling career. A lot of the trees had signs with their names (and scientific names, which would have been SO handy when making the leaf collection!) on them...it was neat to walk through them. Walks like that get me in the mood for fall - the leaves are going to be changing before we know it!
Needless to say, our little family had a really nice time walking through nature. We look forward to the day when little Siena runs down the path and picks up flowers and leaves and makes bouquets to bring home and display. And yet, I want her to stay little for as long as possible...the days are already flying by!