Adventure Days

Last week we had our first ever "Adventure Day". I decided that there is so much cool stuff around here to do outside that I need to plan an adventure once a week for my kids. So, I do a fun preschool lesson on whatever it is that we'll be doing and then we go on the adventure. Last week we went to Timpanogos Cave. Britton was so excited. We checked out books at the library on caves. And for preschool we learned all about caves. He learned how to spell cave and practiced writing C's. He learned all the cave vocabulary (stalactite, stalagmite, etc). We colored pictures of caves and drew in the stalactites and stalagmites. We learned about bears and hibernating and all about bats. We built a bear cave and put all our teddy bears inside and then pretended to hibernate for the winter. We went outside and hung upside down from the tramp like bats. Anyway, we had a great time and it just built up his excitement for go to a real cave.
We went to the cave on Friday. Jason carried Haley in a backpack carrier the whole way up. I ended up carrying Britton on my shoulders about half the time on the way up. The hike was a bit long for him, so he lost a bit of the enthusiasm by the time we actually go to the cave. But, once inside, he was fascinated again. He had a great time being able to see the things that we had been learning about. He and Haley both had a really hard time keeping themselves from touching things though. They would see a really cool rock formation and their first instinct is to feel it all over.
On the way down, Jason and I switched--I carried Haley and he ended up having Britton on his shoulders a lot of the way. We had a nice picnic lunch by the river across the street from the cave. For our first Adventure Day, I'd say it was quite a success.