It’s already mid-May and here I am just finally updating our 1000 hours outside challenge for the month of April. If you haven’t been following along, I’ve been keeping monthly updates as we work our way to 1000 hours. It is much easier said than done-especially with a toddler who takes a nice, long afternoon nap (definitely not complaining)!
Here’s What We Did
April had some great weather, with some cooler, and wet days mixed in as expected. On the nice days though we spent as much time outside as we could. I’ve realized I need to find some sort of rhythm or plan for our time outside versus inside because the house got really messy and hardly cleaned. It helps that we don’t have a lot of stuff, but for some reason, the stuff we do have never made it to where it belongs and our house got really dirty. I definitely need to declutter more and carve time away to clean moving into the summer.

This month I became very relaxed with the tracking minutes as we spent more time outside. Most days were just a rough estimate. In total, we spent 63 hours and 30 minutes outside. This brings our yearly total to 129 hours! We are a very, very long way from the 1000 hours but oh well. Even if we don’t get there, we have enjoyed all our time outside thus far.
We did many walks and short hikes. We played lots of disc golf and even ventured to some new-to-us places. I found a water table and swing on Facebook Marketplace for free, which has already gotten so much use! I’m hesitant to get used toys because of lead but they look newish and are strictly outdoor toys- you can read why here.
May is already starting out great with lots of warm weather! It is so fun to see the native flowers I planted last year begin to emerge. We are already hard at work converting more of our lawn to native garden beds which has proven very challenging with a toddler and dog!





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