Haldon Forest Park

There is a book that I think is pretty unique to England.  Well I had never heard of it before and it is celebrating it's 25th Anniversary.  It is called The Gruffalo.  It is the cutest story about a mouse that goes on a walk through the woods and meets lot's of animals that would really enjoy having him for lunch.  He scares them off by telling them about the Gruffalo beast he is going to meet in the forest.  He thought he was making this all up until he actually does meet a Gruffalo!  All of the state parks in England are doing different events to celebrate it's anniversary.  So we got the book and read it and headed off to Haldon Forest Park near us to go meet a Gruffalo!

There were all sort's of neat exhibits along the trail and this was one of them.  That's one big sock monkey.

Evie Kaye has discovered that she really does enjoy a ride in the stroller!

They had the most amazing musical instruments made out of wood along our trail.  How cool!

This was a little area we found set up along the path.  There was a little tent made of branches, a bon fire set up and these benches.  A great place for a little rest!

Two cute girls!

There were different trails all level differently that you could take.  We were following the green trail and thank goodness it was an easy trail!

This was our view for part of the walk.  Breathtaking!

We had to find the characters from the story all along on the walk.

Meet Mouse.

Mommy bringing up the rear.  Just making sure no one was following us!

There were different activities relating to the book for us to stop and complete along the way.  This one was dealing with the 5 senses.

I love this tunnel we walked through made from trees.

Another really cool musical instrument.

Love this hut.

One of our activities was to construct one of the animals from the story using objects from nature.  They chose to make the snake out of sticks and pine cones.

Meet Fox.

And Owl.

We found this in a little hidden cove.

It was definitely made just for Emma Ann.

It says "Sit on the chair and sing a song."  This little girl loves to sing songs.  She will sing songs that we have learned, but mostly you will hear her singing her own made up songs which is what she is doing here.  Oh, how my heart grows with each note.

And all of them join!

Another activity.  We were matching the animals to what home would be appropriate for them and then constructing an animal home of our own.

And a stop for a picnic lunch.

Do you love how Ethan Jay "needed" to have each corner of his napkin secured down with something.  The more of his food that he ate the more things he had to find to hold the corners down!

Right beside our picnic area was a "Fibonacci Spiral."  The kids loved running threw and threw it!

Entrance into the spiral.  It say enter if you dare!

Ethan Jay needed a break!

Meet Snake.

There were these little one person benches all along the trail.  Very nice for a little rest.  Or for some gymnastics.

Walking the plank.

An adventure through the woods.  

And finally meet the Gruffalo.

Our journey is nearly complete.  There was a little play area near the end of the trail and it was the perfect place for the kids to stop for a few minutes.

This tree had fallen over and they left it as a see-saw!

Another amazing nest swing.  Almost every park has one here!

We Did It!

Up by the park rangers office and little coffee shop, they have this really great sandbox area.  Robert and I were both really ready to go but of course the kids were really ready to play in the sand box.  They had a blast!

Hoisting some sand up.

What an amazing day!  Grandma sadly had to miss out on our trip.  She was feeling a bit under the weather and decided to stay home and rest.  I can't wait to come back later in the summer for a few other events that they have going on related to the book.