The Chesapeake Arboretum! What a cool place to be on a spring day. Not literally -- it was pretty hot and muggy when we took our walk -- but despite that the arboretum was a wonderful place to experience nature.

If you look at the arboretum on the map it is surrounded by neighborhood on all sides. So we expected it to be pretty manicured. Instead, we found a pleasantly maintained mulched path and jumble of wild greenery. Whenever we did catch sight of a house through the leaves it was almost a surprise to see it there.

We took the longest path option which is about two miles of flat and easy terrain, even for Gus's little legs. There are shorter routes available, too. (Find the map here). When we went, back in early April, some of the sections of trail were under construction and a couple of the bridges were out of commission or missing guardrails. So it might be best to check with arboretum staff to make sure the routes still lead where they are supposed to before setting out! We had an issue with a bridge leading to nowhere but it was easily solved by walking out to the neighborhood while James went back for the car and picked us up.

Anouk's favorite part of the walk was climbing on every tree and fallen long she could find and there were tons. There was also so much wildlife to see on this trip! On our two hour hike we saw rabbits, frogs, turtles, butterflies, all kinds of birds, and even a couple of SNAKES. If you're into that, keep your eyes peeled. (If you're not, same).

We plan to go back when the farmhouse is open and when the leaves turn in the fall!

Anouk doesn't remember our first food truck dining experience way back in 2012! But she has been fascinated with the idea of food trucks lately and asking to have a food truck feast all summer (it's on our Not Bummer Summer list ... stay tuned for another update later this week). I'm not exactly sure what she expected she would find but I think it was probably something Willy Wonka/Hansel and Gretelish, like giant vehicles made of food? With donuts for headlights and bananas for fenders?

What we actually did find when we visited the Hub, the Hampton Roads area's first permanent food truck park: Four of the area's best food trucks (there's a rotating roster each day) parked in a little green space between 7th and 8th streets at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. Music being played on a patio, picnic tables set up under colorful umbrellas and people playing cornhole under twinkling lights strung through the trees.

We tried to sample something from every truck. Our faves were the bibimbap and fresh mango juice from Seoul757Taco and the BBQ pizza from Bodacious. YUM! Some of the trucks we were really looking forward to seeing weren't there the evening we visited, but that just means we'll have to go back soon.

So yes, no donut-mobiles but still pretty awesome and a great place to hang out on a Saturday night. Would love to see more permanent or semi-regular food truck parks spring up around the area (Town Point Park, Ocean View Beach Park, I'm looking at YOU).

Let's Go Outside!: Outdoor Activities and Projects to Get You and Your Kids Closer to Nature by Jennifer Ward

Imagine Childhood: Exploring the World Through Nature, Imagination, and Play by Sarah Olmsted

I received a ton of books for Christmas, most of which are waiting on my bedside table to be read. But I did find the time over the winter break to dip into two of them aimed at getting kids outside to play (a constant struggle in our house).


Let's Go Outside is the simplest of the two -- it's basically just a practical list of 52 projects and activities to do outdoors. From instructions on fort building to ideas for nature walks to rules for games you probably played as a kid but forgot all about (Sardines, anyone?), it covers all seasons and weather (we can't wait for some snow to try the DIY snowshoe project). Probably my favorite part of the book is that it grows with the child, adding ways to take each project further for different skill levels. (Example: While the little ones search for ladybugs in the grass, big kids are encouraged to keep a field guide comparing the different species of ladybugs they find and marking down special characteristics).

Imagine Childhood is more for the craftier set, as the focus is on making things using ingredients found in nature or celebrating nature -- earth houses, flower wands, or four seasons capes. There's a lot of text describing the importance of outdoor activity and memories of play pulled from the author's own childhood, which I admittedly leafed past, but the photos are gorgeous and inspiring. Some of the 25 projects are in-depth enough to make them more for the older set -- six to ten-year-olds, maybe? -- but I've earmarked a few for Anouk and me to try (we're definitely building tents in the backyard this summer -- they'll be perfect for Let's Go Outside's moonlight story time).

Did you get any new reads for the holidays? What are your favorite ways to get your kids outside?

(Speaking of getting out of doors, over at Fun and Free Hampton Roads, I blogged about FREE admission to the Norfolk Botanical Garden until January 19. Check it out!)

With this latest spate of rainy days, things are really greening up around town and it seems spring is officially in full swing. Which also means that a lot of local farmers markets are opening for the season! We are big fans of buying local produce whenever we can, and so this time of year is a little like Christmas for our family. Below are some of our favorite markets in the area but we're always looking to add new ones. What are your favorite #HRVA farm markets? And what do you buy there?

1. New Earth Farm: Out Pungo way in Virginia Beach, this organic farm sells some amazing fruits and vegetables in season, some of which you would be hard pressed to find even on a Whole Foods shelf! In years past, we visited New Earth Farm for heaps of watermelon radishes, sunchokes, and tatsoi, fresh eggs, and even seedlings and seeds to start our own garden. It helps that the people are so nice, too. Thats New Earth Farm in the header photo -- look at that Baby A., so happy at the thought of eating some New Earth veggies. Open: Saturdays, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. 

2. Tidewater Community College Greens on the Green: I love this market because it's right smack dab in the middle of downtown Norfolk on the TCC campus. It's a smaller market but so convenient! Open: First and third Thursdays, 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM. 

3. Suffolk Farmers Market: The Suffolk Farmers Market is having its grand opening for the season this Saturday and everybody will be out to help celebrate, from the Suffolk Art League to the Teeny Tiny Petting Zoo. In addition to eatables, this market also features local handmade crafts, well worth the drive if you're farther away. Open: Wednesdays from 3:00 to 6:00 PM, Saturdays from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. 

4.  Five Points Farm Market: Five Points feels more like a general store than a traditional farmers market, but I'm including it on the list because it really is a gem. In addition to local meats and produce, honey, breads, and desserts, there's a great little library with books on all sorts of healthy-living topics and there's also the Get Fresh Cafe, one of our favorite places to grab a quick lunch. Open: Thursday and Friday, 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM, Saturday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and Sunday, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM (year round!)

5. Williamsburg Farmer's Market: The Williamsburg Farmers Market is truly a CW attraction in its own right with an impressive list of vendors. There's often local music and bonus! offerings from local vineyards, too. This Saturday, they are hosting their Children's Day. Open: 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM. 

Over at Fun and Free Hampton Roads, I also wrote about the Atlantic Coast Kite Festival coming up at the Oceanfront this weekend. It's perfect kite-flying weather, so click on over. Have a great weekend, everybody!

t Darcy of No Monsters in My Bed posted last summer about sandcasting with plaster of Paris and I knew right away we had to try it, where had this idea been all my life? We finally got around to trying it last week, probably because during the summertime, we're too bogged down with towels and drinks and snacks and floaties to feel like lugging a box of plaster of Paris to the beach. This time of year, though, it's still too cold for swimming and there's only so much you can do with sand toys, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity. We ended up having a lot of fun and taking home some pretty souvenirs. And finding a new way to spend time in one of our favorite places.

Here's how to do it: mix up a batch of plaster according to the directions on the package -- we used a beach bucket and driftwood stick. Dig a shallow hole in the wet sand, and fill it with shells, sea glass, and all of the treasures you find. Pour in the plaster (make sure it's a few inches deep), wait, and then dig it out and ooh and ahh over your new treasure. (The digging it out is strangely satisfying, I loved how it just seemed to emerge from the sand like magic).



Some tips: the plaster dries incredibly quickly -- it was starting to set by the time we filled our final hole, about five minutes after we mixed it. So keep that in mind. Also, the best designs were the organically shaped ones -- the ones we tried to shape into letters or stars or hearts broke apart easily.

It was a lot simpler and low maintenance than I expected, and the results were pretty cool -- our new plaster objet sits on our coffee table at home and everybody who comes in comments on it. There was something so intriguing about bringing home a piece of the beach, almost like making a sandcastle you can keep. How cool would it be to do one of these at every beach you visit, a sort of memento of the trip?

The summer is over but Anouk and I have still made a point to hit the beach at least once a week in September and October. I love the beach in autumn; beaches change with the seasons, too, and fall is especially pretty with the pines dropping needles and the goldenrod in the dunegrass coming into bloom. When we come home we're chilly and cozy and reinvigorated -- and we usually have a handful of sea glass to show off for our efforts.

Autumn is a great time of year for sea-glass hunting -- the weather is cooling down, the beaches are beginning to empty, and storms are churning up the coast, stirring everything up. Prime sea glass hunting weather. Some people chart the tides and the phases of the moon to find the best times for collecting sea glass, others bring special equipment to pan for glass in the shallows. Anne and I just walk and see what we see, which is usually a good enough tactic.
There is an art to looking for sea glass and A. has it. She can spot even the tiniest shards of color in the tide line. Of course, because sea glass is really just glass, it can be sharp, so she knows not to touch it until I've examined it and pronounced it OK. She just calls out the color and I come over to check out what she's found. If it's smooth enough and frosted enough, the glass goes into our bucket. If it's still sharp and only a little cloudy, we toss it back into the water. The waves will smooth it a little more and it will wash up for somebody else, sometime later. That's the Tao of sea glass hunting -- if it's not for you, it's not for you. Move on.



The beaches around Hampton Roads are great for sea glass, because of their proximity to shipping lanes, factories, and colonial-era settlements. So there is always another lovely frosted glass shard or smooth piece of pottery to find and bring home and display. There's a hierarchy of sea glass -- oranges, reds, yellows, and purples are rare. Black is almost impossible to find. The common blues and greens and browns are a dime a dozen -- a lot of "professional" sea glass collectors wouldn't even bother picking it up, but we like it.



I don't know exactly why I love sea glass so much but I think it has something to do with the idea of something ugly -- something that's basically just trash, junk -- that's transformed and smoothed into something beautiful. I read once that diamonds are made by nature and refined by man; sea glass is made by man and refined by nature. I think that's a really humbling thought.

Do you collect for sea glass? For those of you readers who live in landlocked places, don't forget about beach glass (found along rivers and lakes). For an interesting NYT article about the current state of sea glass collecting in the US, click here.

Have a great weekend!

Fall is one of my favorite times to get outdoors, so it's been a bummer that so many of the HRVA area national parks and sites are closed due to the government shutdown. Luckily, First Landing is a state park and is still open! And it's at its absolute prettiest right now.

Our playgroup met up there last week for the express purpose of visiting the new Discovery Room at the Trail Center. Unfortunately, the room was off-limits while staff cleaned and fed the animals, but luckily again, the trail center features some other great stuff to hold the little ones' attention, including a cool little exhibit on local flora and fauna, complete with a "please touch" area where we could stroke fur pelts and listen to seashells.



After we'd done a few turns around the exhibit, we went back outside to set off down the Bald Cypress trail, a mile-and-a-half-long boardwalk trail through a marshy wooded area. We didn't make it through the whole loop -- the kids stopped several times, to peer at a frog, climb a hill, and eat some trail mix. And pose for lots of pictures.

First Landing is beautiful in every season, but it really shines in late summer/fall, so much so that I'm adding it to our Fall Fun List as a must-see autumnal destination. What are your favorite spots/trails in the park? Have you made it to the Discovery Room? I'm determined to check it out, so I know we'll be back soon.

• Think pink (and red, and blue...) Each pollinator is most attracted to a certain color range of flowers. For instance, bees prefer yellow and blue flowers, while hummingbirds prefer reds and pinks and butterflies will be attracted to blossoms in the violet range. We made sure to choose plants in several color ranges, but to concentrate our choices in ones that would be most appealing. 

• Go for three of a kind. The more plants you have, the more likely you are to attract pollinators to your space. Ideally, to attract the greatest number of pollinators, you would plant in masses of five or more plants in the same color spectrum. However, for a lot of gardeners with limited yard or patio space, this isn't an option. A good rule of thumb is to place at least three flowering plants of the same color range on each doorstep (front, back, side if you have a side door).

• Do double duty. The space in our backyard is limited, so we made an effort to choose plants that would appeal to more than one pollinator. Our big, bountiful buddeleja (butterfly bush) is also a favorite of bees. Our salvia bush is one of the top plants for hummingbirds, but also attracts the insects that bats eat. And the deep flared flowers of the hummingbird plant (AKA Dicliptera suberecta) will appeal to butterflies as well as its namesake.

• Party hardy. Because our pollinators will need food throughout the summer months, we chose plants that are cool-weather hardy, and will bloom late into the season. Asters, shasta daisies, bee balm, trumpet vine, and blanketflower (gallardia) will all bloom throughout the summer and well into the fall.  

• Stay up all night. Don't forget the late-night pollinators like moths (which are often overlooked). Many daytime flowers close their buds at night, but there are plants that will blossom in the evening. Evening primrose, moonflowers, and flowering tobacco are all examples (we planted a patch of cheerful four-o'-clocks for just this reason). 

A few of our transplanted flowers are looking a little ragged in the heat, but we've still seen an increased number of butterflies (a few gorgeous swallowtails!), bees, and flying ants (?) buzzing around them. Anouk no longer screams when she sees a bee, but says, "Hi! Hi!" I guess those bee-friendly books are really changing her attitude?

I photographed this project while we were doing it, but looking at the photos after, was kind of like, "Eh, maybe not" about posting it. However, when Anouk was still talking about our leaf prints the next day, and demanded we do it again the day after that, I reconsidered. I've never seen an art project hold her attention for this long.

It's a very simple concept: you line up a bunch of leaves and flowers on white paper, cover them with a paper towel, give your kid a hammer, or a mallet, or a wood block, and let them whack to their heart's content. After a good hammering, the pigments in the leaves transfer to the paper, and you've got yourself a nice, nature-inspired print.





A few tips: dark-colored flowers and needle-y plants (pine needles, rosemary) make the most striking designs. We had the best results when we placed the underside of the leaf against the paper, facing up. We also noticed that after a few hours, some of the colors faded or turned brown -- any suggestions for things that might keep them bright and fresh are appreciated! (Lemon juice? Fixiative spray?)

Our designs turned out a little muddier and less crisp than the examples that we found online, but some of them were really pretty in spite of (because of?) the softer effect. And we had a really fun (and noisy -- sorry neighbors) time making them.



We're going to try this again in the fall, with some bright autumn leaves. Happy Monday!