Our Summer Adventures Part 2

As Summer is slowly making way for Fall, I thought it might be time to write this second part of our summer adventures! I love everything about Fall, the colder mornings, the smell of food in the crockpot, the harvest of Summer's bounty, the baking of pies, the hikes in the woods foraging mushrooms...everything about Fall seems to bring with it a breath of fresh air!

Yet, just before fully embracing this new season, I wanted to take time to imprint a few more of our Summer's adventures in our memories forever. And here is where I do it best...

We have discovered a little piece of heaven on earth! I am in the process of getting my reflexology certification (something I am very excited about, but that will be for another post) and my teacher was such a wonderful woman filled with knowledge and wisdom. During my two intensive weekends of courses she shared so many useful information with me I felt like I could pick her brain for days and still only scratch the surface of all that she could share with me!

At one point, I was talking about my kids and how we have been using essential oils for years now and how when we come to the end of each oil bottle my kids always want to ‘refill’ the bottle with their own mix of ‘oils’. They go in the woods, come back with either wild flowers, roots or leaves and start extracting oils with their mortar and pestle. Mix that with a little rain water and maybe a bit of mud and there we have it, a new oil! She immediately told me about a place that would bring so much joy to my kiddos and she was so right!

She suggested we visit La Clef des Champs, a place a few hours from our home where the mountain is filled with beautiful gardens and where they use their flowers, herbs, roots etc. to make tinctures, teas, supplements, oils, everything we love so much!

So, a few weeks ago, I strapped the kiddos in their carseats as early as I could (let’s be honest, by the time we had had breakfast, cleaned up, packed our lunch and what not, it was well passed 8 am) and we headed for our two-hour drive to La Clef des Champs! They were so excited, they had been keeping a countdown of when we would be going. They had packed their backpacks with all their nature books on herbs and flowers, and brought their journals so we could take notes of what we would discover!

My sister-in-law and lifelong best friend was to meet us at a restaurant nearby where we would pick her up and take her on our adventure with us!

By the time we got there, it was almost lunchtime...we drove all the way up the mountain, parked our car and immediately went into their little shop which was also a nice little tea place! We ordered a few drinks and sat in their picnic area to share our lunch before heading further up the mountain hiking.

The hike took us about two hours, taking us up the mountain then to a nice resting place where we had iced tea made from their herbs. Finn wanted me to write down each and every name of the plants we saw and we had to stop to look at insects and flowers every few minutes but it is what made it such a beautiful day!

By the time we got back down the mountain, the Peach(our youngest's nickname) had taken a short nap in her baby carrier on my back, the kids were drenched in sweat (and so were we...) but we left with such a beautiful adventure imprinted in our hearts and memories we think we just might have to make this little day trip a yearly tradition from now on!