Taking a family mental health day

That sounds better than playing hooky, huh? It was gorgeous, sunny and supposed to be nearly 70 degrees, so J. and I decided that what we should do was cancel all family obligations and take off and do something to enjoy the weather. We decided to go checkout a nature center we had never visited and ended up at the Crabtree Nature Center.

The center had an indoor building with some animals and displays which people enjoyed looking at, and then we headed outside. There were a couple of different trails, but we stuck with the shorter one.

Check out the happy looking people waiting for the slower ones.

There was a children's play area with a giant spider web.

Some did not want to play on the spider web.

R. kept wanting to hug P. by the legs and very nearly knocked her (P.) off her perch more than once.

Playing tic-tac-toe

We thought this looked like Eeyore's house.

G. and L. could have played here in the little stick house for hours.

Does anyone else find paths edged by wood fences supremely satisfying?

The center also had some raptors who had been injured and could no longer live in the wild. We were all a little smitten by this barred owl.

K. found a hat.

The nature center does not allow picnicking, but the ranger working at it gave us several suggestions for nearby parks.

We ate.

Children played.

P. and TM climbed trees.

And L. searched for trolls under the bridges. (She really is there on the left and kind of blends in with the leaves.)

Even the ride home with tired children was pleasant as they found an old Mad Libs pad in the car and spent the next hour cracking themselves up. It was a pretty nice afternoon, though J. and I long to have some woods in our backyard for our children to be able to play like that in all the time.