Biking on the Interurban: 4-15-17

Laurel and I had an amazing day with the Trilliums this past Saturday biking on the Interurban Trail. The day started out chilly but by lunch time there were girls sprawled out in the sun in T-shirts and bare feet. We couldn't have asked for a better day and the group did great sticking together, encouraging one another, and muscling up the big hills on our journey from Fairhaven Park to Lost Lake trailhead. Some highlights from the outing included:

-The usual check-in during Opening Circle and welcoming Jaeli into the group!

- Biking laps around the Fairhaven Park parking lot before taking off down the trail...we looked pretty silly doing it:)

- Stopping at the first overlook to enjoy snack and chit-chat during a rest break

- Getting "gnarly" on the single-track down-hill section of the trail in Arroyo Park. 

- Enjoying the trailside views including flowing rivers, cascading waterfalls, and scents of spring as we meandered our way through the forest.

- Stopping mid-way to build forts and reunite the Muddy Butt (now the Muddy Fish Butt) religion.

- Stopping for lunch and Peaceful Place at an INCREDIBLE property with donkeys, a pond, a large waterfall, a beautiful cherry blossom tree, and a sunny lawn to lounge on.

-Making it to our destination just in time for closing circle and an attitude of gratitude for sunshine, good friends, new experiences, mud, and more.

Enjoy the Album of our day here.

Trilliums Service at Woodstock Farm 3-12-17

The Trilliums joined with the Silver Salmon and Sea Stars this past Sunday for a day of service at our adopted site, Woodstock Farm! The group gathered in the muddy, busy parking lot of North Chuckanut Trailhead before loading onto the bus for a short ride to the service site.

At our Opening Circle, we checked our preparedness, as the weather called for a day of low temperatures and potential rain. We also talked about why we are serving today, and reviewed another motto, Our Cups Overflow. The Trilliums agreed that people are not the only ones whose cups can be empty, and that today we would be filling the cups of the cedars, firs, ferns, fungi, eagles, rabbits, deer, maples Woodstock Farm in all it's bayside beauty. The girls pointed out that even though we "pour our overflowing water" into other's cups, our cups are not really emptying but in fact filling!

With that magical aspect in mind, it was time to get to work! The Trilliums dropped packs, had a quick snack, and then headed down the hill to do trail clean-up and brush removal on all of the trails that weave throughout the Woodstock Farm property. The girls had fun doing a little mud gushing at the beach, and spirits were high as we slipped and slopped our way up the muddy trails and through the forest, ending our first task at a big mossy clearing that presented a new battle: Ivy removal!

Without missing a beat, the Trilliums set to work pulling, climbing, cutting, and hauling ivy out of the woods where it was fiercely taking over huckleberry bushes, maples, cedars, and young saplings. We were muddy, sweaty, and determined to keep up the fight when we finally took a break.

With a good chunk of service done and many native plants left free to breathe and grow, it was time for lunch! The three groups rejoined on the bluff where we ate, chatted, and compared mud stains and "battle scars" from our busy morning of brush hauling, weeding, and invasive plant removal. We played a giant game of Spider's Web all together and then it was time to get back to work! Soon enough it was time to walk back to the bus with our GIANT bag of invasive plants, and meet up with families and friends.

Our words of the day? Mud, IVY, Service, Friends!

Enjoy the shared slideshow from the day here!

Mottos especially alive today:
Be Prepared
Our Cups Overflow
Safety First
Widen Your Circle
Walk Your Talk
You See It You Own It
Attitude of Gratitude

Service With WTA 2-26-17

The Trilliums knocked the socks (or should we say hard-hats?) off of the WTA crew this past Sunday with their hard work, determination, and "tenacity", to use the words of one of our crew leaders on this day. Our day began with a quick check-in from the group in our Opening Circle before joining the good company of our work crew leaders. We couldn't have asked for more mindful, generous, and enthusiastic WTA leaders to guide us through a day of trail-building on the Fragrance Lake trail. After a crash coarse in tool use and safety, we slapped on our hardhats and set off up the trail to our work site.  



The WTA builds and maintains trails over the entire state of Washington, and their volunteer trail maintenance program is among the largest in the nation. They log more than 105,000 volunteer hours statewide each year, and over 2500 volunteers giving back to the trails they love. Our group hiked in over a mile with tools, hardhats, and full packs to work on a section of the trail that needed rerouting.

Highlights from the day include:

*Connecting with one another and our WTA crew leaders as we hiked our way up the beautiful Fragrance Lake Trail. 

*Using and learning about some "real deal" trail tools including McLeods, Pulaski's, hoes, and hand saws, among other tools. (Ask your daughter about the use of each tool or which was her favorite!)

*Getting down and dirty as we hauled brush, transplanted plants, built up berms, and moved around rocks, small and LARGE with shovels, hoes, and our own strength and willpower!

*Learning new skills such as how to properly haul rocks, techniques for sawing logs, good transplanting and hole digging techniques, and safety checks/tips throughout the day. 

*Enjoying stories and connecting over highlights of the day as we ate lunch together before getting back to work!

*Accomplishing the unthinkable- sawing through a log that was a foot in width and happened to be in the middle of the hiking trail!

*Watching a once tromped and eroded section of forest transform into a beautiful forest garden, complete with new plantings of salal, oregon grape, sword ferns, and saplings! We felt proud stepping back at the end of the day to look at the incredible amount accomplished through our teamwork, strength, and determination!

*Hiking down with tired arms and legs but full hearts and Overflowing Cups* after a day of giving back to the forest, the community, WTA, and the many hikers who will wander up and down this beautiful trail for years to come. 

*Finally, enjoying hot cider, cookies, and Fig Newtons from Arlen, our very generous and comical crew leader. 

To close our day we shared our practice of Attitude of Gratitude and stood together with our WTA crew as each shared something they were grateful for from the day. We have a motto, Our Cups Overflow**, that describes the feeling of giving back to the plants, animals, friends, family, and many intertwined communities who are impacted by these service days. It felt like our cups had created a river of overflow that day. While basking in this river of gratitude, we each shared our thanks for things like the mud, the sun, the company of one another, meaningful work, strength, service, Explorers Club, and WTA. 

Our words of the day? Collaboration and Muddy Construction!

Enjoy the full album of our day here.

Mottos especially alive today: Our Cups Overflow, Get Dirty!, Collaborate and Compromise, Stretch Your Edge, Connect and Protect, Walk Your Talk, Widen Your Circle

Trilliums Games & Teambuilding 2-11-17

The Trilliums (a.k.a. Suave Squad) collaborated and problem solved their way through challenge after challenge this past Saturday during our first ever group Team Building outing! During our opening circle, we checked in and caught up with one another after a long month apart. The group Widened the Circle to welcome one of our new group members, Lilo, into the Trillium family.  There was a buzz of positive energy and excitement throughout our day together as the girls formed new connections and rekindled the old.

The girls wholeheartedly embraced the mottos Stretch Your Edge, Safety First, and We're All Teachers as they worked together to complete each task at hand. More impressive than the completion of each task, though, was the rich discussion, thoughtfulness, creativity of ideas, group growth, and collaborative problem solving that occurred during the process. As we say in EC, it's about the journey, not the destination, and the depth of teamwork and both group and individual edge stretching that occurred on this particular journey was remarkable to observe throughout the day.

We spent our day in rain and shine, sun and shade, as the girls successfully flipped a small tarp with everyone on it, lifted each other over ropes, circled the Labyrinth blindfolded, jumped over swinging ropes, and practiced their collaboration and problem solving skills through many different lenses.

An especially rich discussion occurred during our Leadership Quadrant challenge, during which we organized ourselves based on our innate leadership styles. Some of us were green leaders- the relationship masters who are all about collaboration. Others were red leaders- the commanders and controllers who, when a task needs to be accomplished, will do it, and do it now! Others in the group were yellow leaders- the visionaries who want to get the work done but have fun in the process. Finally, some girls saw themselves as blue leaders- the analytical, calculated leaders who might observe from afar but will do the task and do it right!



Ask your daughter what leadership styles she saw in herself? Which leadership styles challenge her the most? 

We concluded a fun, active, and both mentally and physically exhausting day with our Closing Circle, offering an Attitude of Gratitude and acknowledgement for something we learned about the group or ourselves.

Our words of the day? Mud, Games, Team Building, Suave Squad!

To view the full album of the day, click here.

Mottos especially alive today: Safety First, Stretch Your Edge, Widen the Circle, Collaborate and Compromise, Build Bridges Not Walls, We're All Teachers, Challenge By Choice