My granddaughters are staying for a few days.  As long as the weather is cooperating, we will be doing some exploring.  We went to the Strathcona Wilderness Center.  I don't have any leafy trees left in the yard so we sure enjoyed the fallen leaves on the trail.

They slid on the leaves.  They scooped them into a pile and jumped into it.  They threw them up into the air and even tried making 'leaf angels'.  

We searched for different colors of leaves and even collected some to take back home to make crafts.  

As we hiked, we listened to the forest sounds.  The blue jays, squirrels and chickadees were familiar to the girls.  They could identify what was making the call.  As we got close to my vehicle, we passed by a pond.  We scanned the water's edge to see if the muskrat was around but we were out of luck today.

The day was beautiful and we were having so much fun outside that we decided to go to Elk Island National Park as well.  There was nobody at the playground there so we spent some time on the swings and slides before heading to the dock.

The last time we were there, the water was clear and the girls could see the minnows and tadpoles.  Today the water was filled with blue-green algae.  We couldn't see anything in the water but there were ladybugs, ants and spiders galore on the dock itself.  Our ladybug lover, had to catch one and let it crawl up and down her arm.

The girls are missing school to be at my house but they were still learning all sorts of things.  We counted and sorted leaves into big and small piles.  We searched for different colors and shapes of leaves.  We listened for bird calls and tried to identify them.

We thought of words that started with different letters.  'L' for ladybug and leaves.  'M' for muskrat, moose and Mama.  We were running and jumping to try and land on each others shadow.  Elo said that my shadow looked like Papa.  What fun!  

When we were having supper this evening, we talked about everything that we saw, heard and did during the day.  At the end of the conversation, Wren asks "So Gramma, where are we going tomorrow?"