Born 6 months before the COVID Pandemic hit our earth, days of visiting museums and libraries feels like a thing of the past. Liam has spent most of his days running around the yard and the cul-de-sac. He’s definitely a nature boy at heart and as long as he has a ball to play with he is happy! Today we got free passes from the library and went off to visit the east end children’s museum. I figured it would be something different for him and it’d be nice for him to see other children. The Museum was incredibly organized! Upon arrival, waiting for us was a wagon with our name on it, in it were bins filled with items that corresponded to each center. I thought this was brilliant. Each family had their own items to use making it sanitary and safe for everyone. Of course the first thing that caught Liams eyes were the three balls in one of the bins. That’s all it took, one look and all he needed to entertain him in this beautiful happy place filled with all kinds of rooms and activities was a ball. I think he his obsessed? 

I heard about this goldmine 9 years ago while in a mommy and me class with Isabel and it’s been one of our go-to ever since. Sometimes we go for one hour and sometimes we bring lunch and spend an entire afternoon. We love bringing cousins with us and sometimes, we like to spend our family time there. Admission is free and the farm is filled with many common farm animals such as cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, rabbits, turkeys, peacocks and I’m sure a few others that I’ve failed to mention. Children or adults can feed some of the animals. Food cups are available for $3 with $1 refills and you can keep the cups for future uses. There is a cute wooden train to the far left upon entering the farm, the kids love playing on it. Not too far from the train is a sweet little children’s garden. The fresh air and wide open field make this space a child’s natural playground. My kids absolutely love this place!

There’s also an outdoor nature explore classroom with a huge wide open area for kids to run around freely. A stage is set up with a music and movement area filled with instruments made from household or natural items, they change this often allowing children to explore with all kinds of material. The photos I’ve shared here are from the past and present. There’s also a little section where you can paint with water or get messy in the messy material area. There’s picnic tables for bringing lunches and bathrooms are always open! The fun never ends and there’s always something new! Every Year they add or change something which makes it always exciting to visit. They also have classes, camps and festivals that are fun to attend. We always look forward to Baby Animal Day Which is coming up soon in May 2017. For upcoming events visit ccesuffolk.org.

Have fun!

Winter, spring, summer or fall the Quogue Wildlife Refuge is a perfect place for a family hike. We discovered it several years ago from a book titled “Discover Long Island”, by (put authors name here). My husband purchased it when our oldest child was born so we could discover new places with her. The book has been so helpful for planning special day trips right here on Long Island, and over the years we’ve discovered some family favorites (The Quogue Refuge definitely being one of them). Its 305-acre preserve has seven miles of trails that we’ve enjoyed on beautiful winters days as well as a budding spring afternoons. We never tire of this place and it’s free! There is so much to discover here, from the outdoor wildlife complex that is the home of several injured birds, owls, foxes, bobcat, and tortoises that the refuge has rescued, to its indoor nature center, where you can discover a  variety of reptiles, freshwater turtles, large insects, Chinchillas and mush more. Inside the nature center there is a spacious room filled with books, a table filled with animal artifacts, and a relaxing seating area with a beautiful view of the pond and surrounding woods. It’s the perfect place to pack a lunch (picnic tables out front) and spend a morning or afternoon.

They also host a beautiful Earth Day celebration every year that we’ve faithfully attended several years running. Definitely a lot of fun! This year the kids all got a free bag to decorate and Dragonfly Landscape Design gave a free Norway Spruce to everyone who attended! We’ve since planted a few that we received and gave the rest to family members!

This past weekend we returned for a quiet winter walk and discovered that they added a “story book read along” to one of the trails (absolutely brilliant). The story was the well-known book “The Mitten”, written by Jan Brett. Each page was cleverly mounted into a Plexiglas case and spaced a couple hundred feet apart with arrows directing you along the path. Our kids were literally running from one to the next to be the first one there to read the next page. Their excitement and energy was a testament to how wonderful an idea this story book walk is, and the cases make it easy for the Refuge to replace the pages with the another book every couple weeks.  

Simply stated: This place is so much fun and you’ll find it hard to leave! I’m sure my children will take their kids here someday!

Find out more at quoguewildliferefuge.org

Schedule: The Refuge trails and Outdoor Wildlife Complex are open every day from sunrise to sunset. The Nature Center is open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays 11 a.m.- 4 p.m.

I love living on long Island, particularly because we are surrounded by plenty and plenty of farms. Berry farms, peach farms, tomato, pumpkin, Christmas tree, grapes, and sunflower farms. Everything farms! Animal farms! It’s so lovely to be able to drive a few minutes away and literally pick fresh strawberry’s! My kids eat so many strawberry’s, I literally bought containers of them this week and then my friend (who had recently taken her daughter)  reminded me that it was strawberry picking time so instead of making another trip to the store, Lia and I went to go pick them ourselves. This was the first time we went with out my other two girls so I have a great excuse to go back!

Our library hosted an hour of strawberry picking at Glover’s Farm this week where each family that registered got to pick one quart of strawberry’s for free, but unfortunately we missed it by a couple of days!

Glover’s farm is definitely a fun place to pick Strawberry’s. There was so many to pick from. We filled a 2 Quart container a lot faster than I thought we would. We paid $1 for the container and $4 per quart. The strawberry’s were very sweet and Lia couldn’t resist eating them as she picked. One for Lia, one for the container, one for Lia, one for the container. There’s also a nice playground for the kids to play at and there’s a few animals that you can feed with purchased food. I always bring a lunch and we eat on one of their many picnic tables. It’s a great place to spend a couple of hours on a nice summers day!

Glover’s Farm is located at 633 Victory Ave. Brookhaven, NY. 631-286-7876, 631-332-2012. I believe they are open every day from 10 am- 6pm. They take credit cards! (I never carry cash so I was thrilled about that!)

We’ve been taking trips to LICM (Long Island Childen’s Museum, Garden City, NY) since our oldest was about two. My sister in law used to take her kids here before I had my little ones and I couldn’t wait to explore it with my own children! It’s a bit of a hike from where we live but it’s a great place to spend the day when you have little ones. I used to have a membership until I realized our library gave free passes for up to four people. We can check them out once a month which is great. Check your local library to see what kind of museum passes are available in your area! The LICM museum has about 15 hands on exhibits. If you had all the time in the world you can definitely spend at least an hour at each exhibit. There’s just so much to do, lots of creativity to be had! Bubbles to blow, sand to play with, wood and blocks to build with, instruments to make music with. The creativity is endless! My kids love the big lunch room! They have plenty of tables and vending machines with drinks, snacks, ice cream and I believe they have sandwiches, I’m not sure though because we always bring our own lunch. I do love getting a cup of coffee there and we usually let the kids pick out a little snack.

There’s a cute Backyard exhibit right outside near the entrance to the museum. I believe they open it in the summer time. They have plants and sand and water play so be sure to bring a change of clothes for the little ones.

   Awww, I found a picture of them when they were little LITTLE!! Oh how I miss those days! We definitely have made many memories here!