Try a meadow or grove park
Try a meadow or grove park
Plus, parks with fitness courses so you can exercise outdoors
I’m always thinking about you and how life with kids is going. You’re all at different ages and stages. Some of you might be worn out from October 31st, and frankly, the whole month of activities. Some of you might be celebrating and honoring your loved ones today. Some of you might have opted out of everything and are quietly protecting your peace.
This blog and everything that goes with it started as volunteer work (this has always been a free community resource and I didn’t earn anything to support it from 2008-2017) and part of my activism (since the beginning I was on a mission to empower OC families to prioritize play and nature time — in order to benefit the kids and their healthy development).
These days, I spend the majority of my volunteer-and-activism-time offline. The blog now supports itself, yet without much profit. I’m still here, because play is still worthwhile and worth promoting! So as far as online life these days: I’m still working on my original mission and want to be here for you as at least one constant and safe space — where you can feel welcome, included, and find kindness on a daily/weekly basis.
Where else can I share random cow photos to make you smile! (My grown son sent this to our family chat from his field work this week. Still playing outside in his adult job!)
Hope to meet you outside someday!
Michele
As a friendly reminder, make sure you ALWAYS check official sources when you are heading out to any of the locations I share. These are merely suggestions. Only you know what works for your family. Plus, your experience may not be the same as mine — and there can be changes to the hours or unforeseen circumstances or conditions at the suggested locations.
Featured: Moulton Meadows Park in Laguna Beach
Moulton Meadows Park is at the top of a hill in a secluded spot above Laguna Beach! You will not like getting there if you don’t like vertical driving (what it feels like at some points!), but you will love the views if you are brave enough.
The “meadow” is actually above the park in form of a sports field, but there is a paved path that will take you there along the fitness course. The ocean views are peek-a-boo from here.
Sharing 3 parks with groves
Groves of what? Cedar, redwood, and citrus!
Cedar Grove Park in Tustin
I just love this park even though the cedar have had to be thinned over the years. The playground is still fun with lots of open space to run and play!
Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea
This one is well-known for its redwood grove and this time of year it is buzzing with family photographers and families getting their photos in time for the holidays. Don’t forget to check out the playgrounds, though!
Citrus Ranch Park in Irvine
This park has a whole citrus grove as a backdrop where you can walk through the grove on the marked trails!
Updated on the Blog
Just wanted to let you know that I did make updates this past week to these two blog posts . . .
There are some shocking price tags in here, but also some deals. I’m putting it all out there to help if you want to get some or all of your meals out.
PLAY: Color jumping!
This is the section of the newsletter where we talk about PLAY each week. I might share a video, an article, a book, or something inspiring. Just trying to help keep you empowered to prioritize play to benefit development and preserve childhood!
How can you not want to play on the brightly colored rainbow under the swings? My son created a frantic Follow the Leader style game which he very deliberately named Color Jumping. We followed him — and his directions — to jump, hop, spin, run backwards, twirl, leap, and zig-zag across the colorful surface.
“Start on red, then hop on one foot to green without touching the purple.”
“Jump on every other color until you get to blue.”
“Run, but don’t touch yellow.”
Get the idea? Your kids can get super creative with this at any park that has patterns in the recycled rubber surfaces.
Tiny Hike Teaser: I didn’t forget about the upcoming Daylight Savings change to fall back on Saturday! This tiny hike might help with that?
OC Tiny Hikes are a PAID add-on/upgrade to this FREE newsletter subscription. When you become a paid subscriber, you get a mini trail guide sent to your inbox each week in addition to this regular free newsletter.
This week’s trail guide is scheduled to come to your inbox in a few hours!
You can subscribe for $5 a month OR $39 a year - just be aware that it’s NOT a full year since I don’t send out hikes in August/September. It’s still a good deal because for those 10 months of trail guides, it costs only $39 for the annual subscription and would cost you $50 total if you were paying monthly. So an annual subscription is more like a 22% savings on 10 months. [Again, there’s a pause on monthly billing for the months of August and September to skip the heat of summer and then it restarts back in October for prime fall hiking season.]
If you are becoming a new subscriber in November 2024, I highly recommend coming on as a monthly subscriber for the $5/month. Then you can see if you like it and cancel any time.