Get Outdoors: Becoming a Stronger Outdoor Family

We’ve been having pretty serious discussions lately in our family about a plethora of items. It’s been time for a little soul searching, as we put together our 5 year goals for our family. Every time we get to a major crossroads, I tend to get a little reflective of where we’ve been and who we are.

With the who we are, we haven’t really been indulging one of the huge pieces of us, and our family.

 We lost a piece of ourselves between renovating, and our two gorgeous children. We put it aside. It wasn’t a priority.

Then I realized that virtually every fond memory that I have from my husband and I’s pre-children phase involved the outdoors.

Every. Single. One.

Wow.

 We loved to car camp, hardcore style with an old ghetto tent with metal poles. I loved this hammock so much, I broke it. We ate piles of hot dogs cooked over camp fire. We lugged jugs of water to our site.

We hiked kilometer after kilometer. We even took a special detour on a trip to hike a trail specifically in Algonquin Park. (Yes, it was completely worth the detour). We checked out the fall colours at Rattlesnake Point and we braved the early spring mud at Halton Falls. We hiked the back parts near Kelso and found fields of grass almost as tall as me and old footprints from farmhouses from a different century. 

We swam in lakes, rivers, streams…. we paddled them, we boated on them. We even trampolined on them. 

RECREATION. Our unwind time, our outdoor-ness that centred and calmed us. Where we had amazing conversations, trips full of memories and loads of snaps via me, the shutterbug.

The gear needs, pre-planning required and logistical challenges have got us down, but we’re fighting back starting this Spring. We are determined, focused and driven. This important piece of our history needs to be passed on to our children, renewed and appreciated for it’s value.

The statistics in Canada are absolutely staggering on why.  Active Healthy Kids Canada does a report card each year on how we’re doing as a country on physical activity for children and youth. We value outdoor time but for a third year in a row, there isn’t enough evidence to tell if we’re getting enough. I infer that as we’re probably not! Parents as the #1 teacher have a huge role to play as an advocate of the outdoors. The more we expose our children to the outdoors and become a stronger outdoor family, the more likely that child will be to continue to participate in future. It’s certainly true of both of our backgrounds.

Becoming Stronger: Outdoor Family Bucket List

We created together a really simple bucket list of the activities we wanted to tackle as a family this summer. We’re starting simple and small!  Here’s the activities we want to accomplish this spring & summer with our kids:

• Bike a trail
• Visit Mountain Bike Skills Park
• Go for a walk and be present at least once a week
• Go geocaching (more)
• Visit all the playgrounds in our town
• Go to the beach
• Pick berries at Deb’s U-Pick
• Visit new farmer’s markets
• Cook over a campfire
• Go fishing
• Swim in a lake
• Eat watermelon
• Have a BBQ with friends
• Eat s’mores
• Make giant bubbles
• Fly a kite
• Campfire in the backyard night
• Take dinner on the road
• Camp at 5 different campgrounds

Here’s a printable for our spring & summer outdoor bucket list if you want to try it too.

We look forward to sharing our adventures with you starting next week!

What are you planning for fun this spring and summer? Are you an outdoor family?