Spring has finally arrived in New England!! We went from below average temperatures to warmer than average and lots of sunshine this week. I am loving it and so is Hazel. As a result, our craft ideas are put aside for being outside. We have been exploring nature and just playing. Here are some of our adventures from this week.
One day we went to an outside mall and played at the playground and in their open green. I love bringing her here since the playground is right next to the Starbucks. The playground is to show kids about the meadow surrounding the mall. She loved walking on the cement stumps to work on her balance. If she slipped, she started over.
It also has animals you can climb on. She needed a picture on each one. It was fun to watch her figure out how to get on the large turtle.
After some pushy kids came, so we headed over to the open field. On the way we stopped for pictures with the cows. These cows use to be in front of a restaurant in our town that recently closed. They had signs asking you not to sit on them, so she stood beside them.
When we first got to the field, another young girl had bubbles to play with. We walked over to the toy store to buy some bubble stuff. Then we had fun in Hazel's chess house, hopping the squares of the checker board and checking out how the checkers roll.
Plus of course she needed to ride the knight piece.
Since none of the other kids wanted to play with her (she asked a few), we decided to go check out the conservation part of the meadow and look for animals. The meadow is where a river ends and pools, so we saw some pretty sights, but no wildlife.
The other day we saw some swans near Hazel's school and it looked like they might be nesting. They were definitely moving something with their beaks. We decided to park and check them out.
We couldn't get too close since it was marked as reservoir land, plus we didn't want to scare them away.
There was a pair of geese near them as well, but I couldn't get them in a picture. On our walk back to her school and my car, we picked up acorns. I'll post another time about the crafts with those. Then as we drove down the road we saw an interesting black bird. We do not know what it is.
There was one swimming as well where you can only see its head.
Then on our way back to see them again (and get pictures) we found a great street sign.
Once home we stayed outside. Hazel played with the 12-year-old girl next door. While they were playing house, I saw three eggs in our yard. They were not really near a big tree and kind of scattered. Steve's guess is turtle eggs since turtles are known to be in our area for nesting this time of year.
The girls checked them out with me and then went back to playing. They were playing house with the swingset as their houses. They both collected things to be their food. Hazel was picking the dandelions, violets and clover for her soup.
While they played, I watched the birds at the feeder and knitted. It was a lovely day!
