Day 2
New Moon
Foothills Park-The Island

Climb the Mts. and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy while cares will drip off like Autumn leaves.  John Muir 1901

With calm love he found his ease and balance and then Mom came back to join us for the day. Yeah!!
The stuffed animals were given out and Liam was happy to have a partner with Zac who also did not want a stuffed animal.
They were shown the Moon calendar that is in the front of the bus. Grandmother Moon’s blanket is all the way over her head right now/New Moon, and now she will begin to pull it back down, yet again, just like we do when we pull our blankets up over our heads and back down, night, day, night,day.  Then, off we went back to the place we went the first day, for familiarity.
Having circle was no where near as “tidy” and “together” as it was with you parents there to hold it in that  state.  This is not unfamiliar. So, as it was clear they REALLY wanted to RUNNNNN all down the meadow, that is exactly what they were invited to do and then, they were very happy to be in circle singing, eating snack and hearing story.
Then off to find the Island.   Julian, Serena, Juliet and Zara, were very familiar with this and knew where to go though none wanted to lead the way but rather support me as I lead them all.   I gave them landmarks as to where to go and what to look for (beginning mapping skills)and off they all went.  They found their way with fun and joy and onto the Island over the curvey bridge we went.   Once there we set up a place to put back packs and off to explore they did go.
Throughout the day there were grand adventures of Hide and Go seek, instigated by Liam, and much house playing.  According to Eden, Julian was “Daddy” and Zara was “Mommy.”    There was  a great lot of fishing with sticks and cat tails for fishing poles.  They caught the plant life in the pond that was either Sea weed that they hung to dry like in Japan (inspired by Jill), or fish of many different colors that was put into one big pile.
Zac got picked up by his Father and Brother to go off to Rosh Hashannah celebrations early and everyone gave him a grand good bye as they went off.
Not long after that it seemed time to me to move on so they all got packed up and off on to another adventure we went.  This time they turned right off of the bridge instead of left and then we got to choose from three possible trails to ultimately find our way back. This took a little time to figure this one out.   They were asked to point to how to get back to the bus if they were a bird flying. From there some took the high path and others took the low path and then we met up with one another.  We found ourselves on the “Wibbly, Wobbly” dock and explored these wonders as they wobbled a top the water.  We then found our way to the other dock to see if it TOO was Wibbly, wobbly.  Not quite as much BUT, we took off our shoes and socks and had such fun dangling our feet in the cool water and splashing about.  It was very hard to leave this last spot but, we did it, made it back to the bus, had our good bye songs with thank you’s AND, so ended our very first week of a year of grand nature explorations and adventures.