12 years... time sure flies!

my first born is 12! wow!

we spent the day at knott's berry farm

still trying to figure out my new camera, feels really awkward, hoping it gets easier. lizzie struggled a bit, being too little for most big rides and too big for the little rides...



with my squeamish stomach, i took advantage of our time together waiting for the big kids. we shopped and had our own adventures, i treasure these fleeting moments shared with her alone. happy birthday emily!!

Love A Sea Turtle

we recently had a sea turtle meeting that was inspired by a nonprofit organization on the east coast (north carolina, yay!) called Love A Sea Turtle. it was started by an 11 year old girl who was so inspired by a visit to a turtle rescue facility, she decided to raise money and awareness to save sea turtles where she lives. luckily for her, sea turtles nest along the east coast so they get to see them lay eggs and can help protect the nests. we made a donation and requested a dvd to use at our meeting which the kids were riveted to. i did a little lecture on sea turtles (happy i found a great book on our own bookshelves!) and we took notes in a little sea turtle book. i had a craft for them (turtle collage) but with all the good question and answers going on, our discussion took up too much time. love when that happens! so we will continue to learn about sea turtles (specifically the green sea turtle we have here in southern california) and work with our sea turtle friends on the east coast too. 

here's my little guys and another link to Love A Sea Turtle. so happy to find ways to link our local wetlands to an organization all the way on the east coast via a migrating sea turtle! so cool!

los cerritos wetlands évent x 2

i wanted to include something we did at the last los cerritos wetlands event that was totally unexpected! we made and tossed seed bombs! now if you have read my blog in the past you know i am crazy for seed bombs! we have made them at camp and made them at a meeting last year (spreading them all over our local parks full of california poppy seeds) there was something so satisfying in making and throwing all in one go, the kids loved it!

perfect weather and just enough hands on to keep the kids happy. looking forward to doing this more often!

los cerritos wetlands

another awesome event! a special camp fire wetlands walk and restoration

taylor giving us the ground rules and telling us what to expect on our walk



for any of my faithful readers who have heard me lecture on the necessity of saving the wetlands (rants maybe?) we are finally seeing some real work being done to do just that. last week i attended the second of six community meetings designed to get the public involved in the restoration. it was run by eric and taylor, just like a lecture you would expect to hear in a college biology or ecology class (love!!) i will include the link here so you can check it all out. what i love is how formal and REAL this all is, people actually make a living doing research on this stuff and spend their days counting birds, testing water samples, watching the tides, collecting seeds and on and on... (career change maybe??)



the los cerritos wetlands has a few areas that are pristine but much of it is heavily degraded... still the animals and plants exist here. can you imagine how a fully restored wetlands will look?



so here is lizzie along the river channel looking for sea turtles, yes sea turtles here in long beach! they are attracted to the unusually warm water coming out of these electric plants (they use the cold water to cool their "engines" and pump warm water into the channel. this is the bike path i have used to get to the beach my entire life and its been only recently known that turtles are here. these are juvenile green sea turtles, and they are stopping here on their way up and down the coast. we would normally never see them so this is a real treat. the biologists say this is a way for them to avoid predators and they eat the algae produced by all the warm water



last week i had a sea turtle meeting (we have hooked up with the love a sea turtle group from north carolina, more on that later) and those kids really knew the answers to the questions taylor and eric asked them (felt good they remembered!!) so if you are local, plan on coming out to one of the wetland events. this is really happening folks and if we want to save it all, we need everyones help! i still have a few more things to share about todays event... coming soon!

camp wasewagan

most of my camp fire kids had conflicts with our second trip to camp wasewagan (the camp next to yallani) so i had just three rascals to hang out with last weekend. we weren't sure what to expect this time of year, last time it was november which was cold but no snow. there's something about snow that makes kids go crazy and mine spent every waking hour making a snowman and having snowball fights. here is our cool cabin:

the weekend was designed to have discovery level kids from our councils mingle together and work on activities challenging them in areas of trust and communication. i was in charge of an orienteering (sp???) nature walk where groups of kids wrote up a path using a compass (pacing and putting out markers for guidance) and then the groups rotated to follow the paths the other groups mapped out. it was FUN! and the kids (including me) really learned how to use a compass.



up behind the camp was another deserted camp with retro cabins that i became obsessed with







really fascinating... old style like i used to camp in. wasewagan cabins are heated and can be used year round which is great but my heart loves these old tent/cabins too!



here is our little pack of discovery kids



and the snowman that took two days to build


and a trend my daughter started:



tails to go with their animal hats!! :)