Scrapbook: Get Outdoors Baby!

Outdoor baby

When their daughter was just two weeks old, Heidi Ahrens and her husband Erik Sheaff took young Coralie on a camping trip. As a lover of the outdoors, Ahrens wanted her child to grow to appreciate the natural world and she realized that she could use her comfort of being in nature with her young child as a way to increase the amount of time that other children and their families spent outside. She has since created the website outdoorbaby.net, as a place for parents to share their adventures, misadventures, tricks, and "must-avoid" tips for traveling with children in the natural world.

Ahrens not only manages the site, but also teaches at Colorado Mountain College near her Carbondale, Colorado home. "It's always been important to me to do work that helps others in some capacity," she said. "I'm really passionate about being a parent, the outdoors, and education." She has combined these passions and created her website which has become an informative online forum where parents can learn from one another about traveling outdoors with their children -- whether it be an afternoon outing to a local park, a multi-day backpacking adventure, or even a cross-country ski trip. Ahrens emphasizes, "The site is for people who are committed to continue to live a healthy lifestyle with their children, whether they are old seasoned pros or people who are just starting out."

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Patti Klein, National Stewardship and Take it Outside Coordinator of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has said, "The Bureau of Land Management is supportive of the outdoor baby program and website because it encourages kids and families to get outside on public lands and experience nature." As part of the website, Ahrens features a "Tip of the Week" and a "Baby of the Month". If traffic to her website and contributions from families continues to grow, Ahrens hopes to expand the website to include discussions of trips for families with teenagers and international outdoor adventures as well.

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