#guentheradventures

Rocky Fork State Park and Paint Creek State Park are both close to each other in the southwest corner of Ohio. We really enjoyed Rocky Fork State Park and unfortunately did not get to spend a lot of time at Paint Creek State Park.

An English proverb states, "Great oaks from little acorns grow." We learned some interesting facts about acorns and walnuts, since we see them quite a bit on our adventures outside. For instance, acorns are a lot of animals favorite snack and therefore not a lot of "acorns" or even pieces of the seed actually make it into the ground to grow into Oak Trees. Another fun fact is that only adult Oak Trees grow acorns, which is what the proverb refers to. This adventure actually occurred in Nana's backyard aka Nana's Forest . Mamaw and Papaw took over this walk in the park to make a super CUTE fall decoration and as a bonus got the boys outside where they love to explore and FIND things! My mini treasure hunters in the making. So, in order to make this fall decoration you need the following:  -   mason jar or equivalent - red felt - acorns or walnuts or both -  red berries   Depending on what look you want you can get these supplies anywhere from the Dollar Tree

Hueston Woods State Park is more my backyard for my college career. I am actually an Alumna of  Miami University  of Ohio . When I attended the university many many moons ago, we would visit Hueston Woods and visit the lake portion of the park. 

With the holidays around the corner, I have been wondering what I could get for our family. Each year we always tell grandparents "get them an EXPERIENCE not a toy" because while the boys love toys, we love taking them on adventures and experiencing new things. Experiences could be as simply as going to the park, painting pottery, going to the Zoo or Aquarium.... with g e r m s being a nation-wide, even global concern experiences aren't as easy to give. So I thought, what would people who like adventuring could they use or take with them on their journeys. I made this list for you gift givers out there who have friends or family that like to camp or explore if you need some ideas! If not, it is just a cool list of stuff to see! Nature Crafting and Learning Gift Ideas: Green Creativity Pressed Flower Art Kit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003SN8TB8/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_1ChSFbZ68C5NH?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Starter Rock Tumbler Kit https://www.amazon.com/

Sycamore State Park was a smaller park since we have started our park journeys. One of the things that is an unofficial number one rule is: go with the flow.  The first thing, after we decide which park we are traveling too is read the history biography on the OhioDNR website. We don't plan what to collect or what we want to see as we hike.

  Elf goes on a #guentheradventures and here is the plan.... We have never done Elf on the Shelf and while our kids are still young (4 years old and 2 years old) and I consider myself to be slightly crafty... I was never excited to do Elf on the Shelf. 2020 however, is a different story. Below I am posting our plan, the MASTER schedule, and I will update pictures as Elf goes on his adventures through the house and backyard. 

One of the things I have always found fascinating is trees. Yes, it is acceptable to eye roll here, it sounds silly.

In a previous blog post I wrote about how we played around with preserving leaves and then decorating them. The finished products of that project are on the left here. We ended up making a porcupine, a cat, a lion, and a leaf friend. It was definitely a fun project and if you don't have any of these items, don't worry about it you can make these materials or use what you have around the house.

#guentheradventures Bucket List 1. Designing an imaginary treehouse 2. Making a map including a bird's eye view map     My Room     My House     My State     My World 3. Playing nature bingo 4. Finish the picture 5. Made magazine art 6. Reflect on my journey journal 7. Two Trees      Sit outside or walk around for a few minutes looking at the area around you. Find a spot to sit or a table. With some paper, crayons, (maybe a camera?) compare two trees. Different? Same? Height? Color? 8. Leaf Tracing     Find some leaves! Try to find a leaf the same size as your fist and trace it. Inside write about you (or in our case just your name). 9. Smallest to Tallest      Sit outside or walk around for a few minutes looking at the area around you. Draw the smallest thing you see. Draw the tallest thing you see. 10. Hedgehogs (Completed 11-2020)     Get brown paper and cut out a rough shape of a hedgehog. Find some leaves! Glue them onto the hedge hog to give him his "shell type" b

On our trips to different parks and on nature walks, we end up collecting quite a bit of leaves, sticks, and stones. We are going to use them in different projects, but for this one we simply are experimenting with preserving leaves. We will also test and see if we can draw and decorate them after the fact. Don't worry, I will update with pictures!! I predict they will be amazing... maybe we will even use googily eyes. Before (above) We are creating a bucket list of things to do on, during, and after our adventures. On the list is leaf animals. By preserving the leaves using the following process we are going to make a hedgehog and maybe some other animals depending on how create we get with our art project.  We will even break out the paint! We preserved our leaves by using mod podge and foam brushes . Starting on the back we applied a light layer so we didn't break the leaves since they were pretty fragile. I would like to try this process with fresh leaves too. Once dry

Cowan Lake State Park was our second of the day, it is within a 15 minute drive from Caesar Creek State Park, and we made it just in time. The extremely kind and friendly attendant at the campground office told us that they are shutting down for a month or so to redo all of the camps bathhouses and cabins. A short distance away from the entrance to the campground was OUR FIRST, at least first completed trail: Old Field Trail. We are so proud of this little fact. It is a short trail... about 0.8 miles. A little loop, but we made it through with boys and- no injuries.  No injuries- is something that we are actually very proud of because this trail had TONS of pointy red bushes.  After researching it, we have come to the conclusion it was a  barberry shrub . This trail was covered in these shrubs so we were careful with the boys because our little one is in the grab before he thinks stage of life.  In addition, another plentiful find on this trail was... STICKS! These sticks, twigs and b

Hello - we are back again. We actually traveled to TWO State Parks today because they were about 15 minutes apart. Our first stop was Caesar Creek State Park and I have to tell you we have a couple of BIG highlights on this trip. Our first highlight was all of the walking paths in this park near the lake had these beautiful (older) wooden fences and a HUGE deck that looked out over the lake. That is where we found our little caterpillar friend!  You wouldn't think it would be so difficult to identify a plain white fuzzy caterpillar.... but it was really hard! We just looked and didn't touch since there are quite a few caterpillars that are harmful to humans. Upon researching for the name we found some interesting facts about caterpillars.  Yes, caterpillars are either moths or butterflies in their larval stage and belong to the class of Insecta. Before turning into beautiful flying insects, caterpillars enter a pupal stage where they undergo metamorphosis.  Only a few furry ca