One of the awesome things about our house is that our backyard borders some woods.  Not a huge forest, but a lot of trees!  In the summer you cannot see the house behind us, but once all the leaves fall you are able to make out the outline of their house and see some lights at night.

The woods are a fun place for the kids to explore.  When they are not overgrown.  We spent the better part of the weekend clearing out trees and other debris that were blocking the “creek” at the top of the woods.  And by “creek” I mean the path where the water flows when it rains really, really hard.  Since the path was blocked, the rain has been flowing right down into our yard…causing what we’ve been calling Floodmaggedon.  You can see that video in a previous post about all the rain we’ve had this summer.

So yesterday and today we spent time up in the woods turning this….

Into this…

Along with clearing out a path along the “creek” that runs across the top of about 4-5 houses on our street.  Our kids and the neighborhood kids LOVE it.  It’s a fun place to go and play and we can still see and hear them pretty well from our backyards.

However, we’re definitely going to have to monitor them and especially what they find.  We see all types of wildlife…from this calm turtle to field mice, foxes, deer, etc.

I really don’t want them bringing home any pets!!

Do your kids love or hate the outdoors?