#guentheradventures

Indian Mound Reserve featuring Cedar Cliff Falls 2750 U.S. Rt. 42 East, Cedarville, Ohio  

Motivating Kids to Hike (and love it!) The benefits to getting kids outside and into nature are well researched, and well documented. We know it’s good for them physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Here are some ways that we have found worked well for us to keep our own children motivated on the trail. We recommend trying them all and seeing what works for you! Scavenger Hunts: Scavenger Hunts can be super simple or more complicated. If you’re on the go, make it easy. Try counting things, like how many people do you see? How many other animals? How many birds? How many fallen trees? You can do sensory searches. Find something soft. Find something rough. Find something quiet. Find something loud. Let your imagination go wild! This can be changed in 1000 different ways to keep your kids entertained.  We’ve used scavenger hunts with kids as young as 2 and with groups of teenagers as well. It’s great for kids of all ages. Actually, adults will enjoy a good scavenger hun...

Little Boots Hiking Club went to Miami Whitewater Forest on Oakleaf Trail, which we had checked out earlier (see previous post), but this time we had a little more excitement. Snake Another Snake Another Another Snake Turtles Beaver evidence! We started our adventure with new friends as we continue to learn about Leave No trace and on this hike it was "leave room from the wildlife" because we were able to see quite a bit of it today. One of the first signs of wildlife was the evidence of beavers! I am still so excited to possibly see beavers one day. We prepared a goodie bag and had a few things for families to do after the hike as they talked about what they saw and the new friends that they made! Beavers are busy busy mammals and they reengineer the land. When available beavers burrow in the banks of rivers and lakes. We think that these two creeks off of the main lake are becoming beaver dams. It is unconfirmed at this point. But beavers also transform less suitable habita...

  It is not everyday that you find bones on the beach... our relaxing and fun hike with new friends took a turn when we found bones on the beach.

Kiser Lake State Park was very cool and much to my boys happiness COVERED IN SNOW! We didn't get very much at home, so he was disappointed until we went a little farther north. We had plenty of snow to play with here at the park. One of their favorite activities we played today was making snowballs and having snowball fights. The boys didn't care where we were on the trail if they saw a good pile of snow it was made into a ball and POOF into someones face! They had a lot of fun! Let me begin by saying, yes this is an expensive carrier. The brand LÍLLÉbaby is on  Amazon . I happened to have been searching and researching for one during black Friday so I mine for 50% off, but if you didn't want to wait until then I promise you the price is worth it.  This carrier is receiving FIVE GOLD STARS from me because carrying my two-year-old was a piece of cake. The weight is distributing perfectly and my back was unaffected. It has cooling material so I don't get hot (although th...

Stonelick State Park - take two. This was the first park that we ever "officially" went to and was the start of our state park adventures.

Tar Hollow State Park and Forest was BEAUTIFUL even in the middle of winter. We explored about 60% of the park between hiking and driving. If you aren't able to hike or hike far, driving around (during the day and slowly!) was a very beautiful drive. We both agreed the drive in the fall would be SPECTACULAR!

Buck Creek State Park is definitely a park that I have on my list to revisit. Being late December we can handle the cold, but the wind turned our faces red pretty quickly.

Cove Spring Park and Nature Preserve ( official tourist spot ) was a stop while we were driving around Kentucky. So, while we originally thought this was a State Park... which it is not officially. It ended up being our first park we got to experience a waterfall!! Both of the boys LOVE water, anything to do with water, and we have made "waterfalls" before, but to see one is a different experience.   Here is a few ideas for waterfall crafts at home if you have these laying around or go make a short run to the dollar store or target. You need materials like duct tape or drill, water bottles, and scissors or a utility knife or box cutter. 1. Water Bottle Waterfall 2. Bamboo Waterfall   (This one probably requires a trip to a store!) 3. Pool Noodle Waterfall The boys also made another discover on this park adventure - a NEW color caterpillar.  Earlier in a post we discovered and did a little research after finding a WHITE caterpillar. This one, however was ALL black! Here i...

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. 

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.