The Valley Of Gold

The kids had a long weekend this week.  Add to that a gorgeous fall day and you know what's coming next...yup, a hike.  We trekked out to our favorite local park, Schaar's Bluff.  But this was no ordinary hike.  We knew the leaves would be in full color.  We would all come armed with iPads, cameras and camera phones in hand to capture as much beauty as possible.  My peeps don't like to simply walk through nature, they prefer to have a task such as a scavenger hunt or an end goal.  So in the spirit of not being bored on a hike I gave the kids the assignment of taking photos of any and everything they wanted to and editing it to be as creative as possible.  The name of the game was creativity and thinking outside the box.  They had a full 24 hours to work on their creations and turn them in.  I would in turn put them on my blog.  I just LOVE what they each came up with!  I treasure the chance of seeing the world through their eyes.

Bennett's collage.  

I love that he added text and font.

My favorite photo of Chloe's

Chloe's personal favorite

My second favorite of Chloe's.

I think she's inherited her Daddy's eye for design.

Even though I told the kids to edit their photos,

I didn't.  I don't have as cool of apps.  But I like 

them just the way they are.  This one is looking 

out onto the Mississippi River.

In this photo, the sun rays were shining through 

so beautifully making the yellow glow under the

tree canopy even more brilliant.

This doesn't quite capture the Valley Of Gold but it

comes close.  You walk into this little valley off the 

trail and voila....it's entirely gold above, around,

and beneath you.  It's breath-taking.  Too bad you

can't capture the other beauties of fall like the crunch

of the leaves beneath your feet and the smell of dried 

leaves all around you.  Exhilarating!

The following is Gavin's collection of pictures.   He chose to put them in a video.  The music that so adequately expresses the occasion, was created by him in GarageBand.  This reflects his personality perfectly!