It’s about 8:45 a.m. as I sit down to write this post.

As a general rule, I write the night before. Mornings are nuts around here and throwing blogging into that mix is generally a stress of the unnecessary kind. But, today, it’s entirely beautiful.

That’s totally because I got out of bed about five minutes ago - literally a luxurious act of God that made me wonder if everyone in the house was OK. (mommy brain. Sleeping in=something must be wrong:)) as I generally roll out of bed around 6 a.m. when the tiny person belts out “Mommy, I’m awake.”

What this all means is that I slept 11 hours last night…it’s hard to write when you’re snoozing away…after a crazy fun Wednesday walking the trails and beaches of MacDonald Wood Nature Park in Comox with families from around the Valley.

CVK’s Summer NeighbourWood Walk Series kicked off yesterday, with Mother Nature cooperating fantastically.

With 60 kiddos and their parents getting together over the span of five hours, it was AMAZING to see families who’d had so much fun in the Spring mixing with new moms and dads (lots of dads, wahoo) with their kiddos jumping in.

It was a perfect day for some major snail hunting, seaweed throwing and berry eating (the salmon berries were a serious highlight) and I really dug the diversity of the groups as the walks grow.

These first couple of walks each session are all about getting to know each other, which kiddos are generally very good at, especially when mud, dirt and nature are involved.

I particularly loved seeing how many moms AND dads came out for the walk, making it into fun, family time. Dads have a different way of plugging kiddos into nature - lots of digging in the dirt, wading deep into the tide pools and running (literally) the trails until giggling and silliness is the norm.

Next week, we are combining the morning and afternoon crews (10:30 a.m.) for a trip to the reef out at Pt. Holmes. I’m so excited because discovering this spot at low tide pretty much sold us on the coolness of the Valley.

Just think starfish, 24-7.

Thanks everybody for making the first Summer walk so great!