a walk in the park...

Yesterday, we took a little break to take a walk in the park. Little mini-trails in our local park are perfect for short legs that are more into finding neat things than exercise (although the fresh air and energy burn off did lead to a great naptime!)

It is amazing to see how interesting the most mundane things {to me} are to a two year old...

The whole walk was infused with strong floral perfumes...it smelled amazing
{until I got home and had to partake in some serious allergy medicine}

We found massive pine cones...seriously, some were close to a foot tall. They would make one heck of a peanut butter bird feeder!

We played I-spy through the trees.

{I-spy is the new obsession around our house lately...}

We discovered a tree that was the meal ticket for hungry wood-peckers...

We found tiny pine cones that were good for accesorizing otherwise mundane sticks

The small pine cone became the official souvenir from the trip...

The neatest part was that I relinquished all control over the direction taken on this walk...it was symbolic of how much my little guy is growing up and it made me equal sad and happy.

{We walked around this wooden bridge 5 times}

Remember my spring goals? This week has become a culmination of starting this new season of life: my first graduate class is coming to an end (lengthy paper due this weekend), we are running a 10K this weekend and a duathlon next weekend (my husband's first multi-sport race!), and my garden is coming along nicely (except for the broccoli that seems to go from too-small-to-cut to already flowered overnight!)

P.S. The above due dates and busy schedule have translated into low inventory over at Camp Cupcake, but I wanted to toot my horn a bit: we have been open 6 months today and my sales have surpassed my goals ten-fold. I look forward to getting back on track in order to move onto an even greater second half of this first year!

A little detour...

We have been both really busy and really taking our time out to enjoy each other at my house...we are working on getting back into the new grove of the changing season. During this time, we took a detour to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park...

We saw breath-takingly beautiful views...

I wore completely inappropriate shoes to climb down to see this beautiful waterfall:

You could walk behind it and the kiddo completely got a kick out of getting wet!

We spent a couple hours as a family hiking the amazing Chimney Top trail...

and saw this at the top...

More information on our little detour and my plans for getting back on the beaten path to come!

Motivation Monday-Spring Goal Setting

As you could tell from my last Friday Finds post, I am a bit ready for spring to be here! We have two days last week of beautiful weather and the bug has officially bitten me. Spring has always been a bit of a new start for me-much more so than the "New Year" since I can't imagine short, cold days motivating me to do much more than burrow under a heavy quilt! This year, I hope to challenge myself to do some of the things I have always wanted to do but felt I didn't have the time to commit to. (And, to be honest, I am not sure that I have the time to commit but I am hoping to learn some better time management skills along the way!)

So-here I post my spring goals for all the world to see (Challenge me! Join me!):

-train for a late spring/early summer race (maybe a sprint tri? TriDivas has some super cute tri-gear and great training programs. And this training program from Shape magazine is very easy to follow!)

-start a small herb and vegetable garden (I am following the advice in starting a garden with repurposed materials from Simple Organic and will be going the square foot gardening route. I tasked my husband with building me this super simple and inexpensive container gardening box.)

-beginning a master's program (Accepted and registered for classes and my husband and I are doing the same program. At the same time. The same classes. Please pray for us! Seriously- we are counting the positives...we only have to buy one set of books, we have a built-in study partner and we balance each other well in our viewpoints! Can't wait!)

What are your goals going into the spring? Are you re-evaluating ones you made at the New Year? I have a ton more things that I want to do, but look forward to accomplishing the three above goals with my family and for myself.