Remember me? I’m Amber and once was blogging weekly. But then 3/4 of my kids went to school and our schedules changed and our most exciting adventures included piano lessons and grocery shopping.
Well, that’s not entirely true. We still had an amazing summer, spending half the time on awesome adventures and half watching cartoons in underwear. We still get out to do fun things, but it’s been difficult for me to keep up with blogging. Instagram has proven to be a somewhat easier method for me to share about our adventures.
But what I’m getting at is that I have a new blog post for you!
Yesterday, in hopes of catching some of the fall beauty that Wisconsin has to offer, I packed up some peanut butter and nutella sandwiches and the kids and went to Lapham Peak. I did a trail marathon this summer (The Grand Island one, it was an INCREDIBLE experience!) and ran the brutal hills at Lapham in preparation. The kids knew that I did some of my runs out there, and I wanted to show them the landscape.
We parked at the Homestead parking lot, and headed out on the Plantation Path, a 1.8mi paved path. Pardon the large amount of photos, but the kids requested that we take pictures of about everything so that we could remember the colors once the browns and greys of winter arrive.
The prairie was our first stop…the golden grasses were so pretty! We read about invasive and native plants and how they travel.
After the prairie, we headed into the pine forest. We noted that some needles turned brown and fell to the ground, creating a soft cushion for our feet. The kids found leaves of all colors (I’m just realizing now that many of those leaves are in the pockets of their jackets that are currently in the washing machine), and insisted I take photos of them all.
Making observations, and guessing which kind of trees squirrels build their nests in.
We all loved the bright orange fungus growing on this log.
And since it had rained the night before, we rescued a few worms from the path.
We also took some portraits because the background was gorgeous AND everyone was happy!
Then wee cut off the Plantation Path and headed to the observation tower. After climbing the 45-foot tower, we set up shop on top and got out some pencils and paper to start some nature drawing.
We made our way back down, hopped on the Kettle View Trail for a bit, and eventually made our way to the parking lot.
Right before our hike ended, we found our first woolly bear caterpillar! The kids took turns holding it trying out names (such as “fuzzy” or “harry”…very original) before setting it down near the picnic tables.
We ate our sandwiches and apples, and talked about the beautiful colors around us.
In all, we hiked almost three miles and all four of my kids were CHAMPS. We were all tired and grounded and happy afterwards, and it was such a great way to reset before the week started.
Anyway, I hope you’ve all been well. Hopefully I’ll get back to this more often than I have in the past few months!
Peace!
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