Meet Us

I played outside any chance I had as a young girl growing up in Florida, spending weekends at the barn with horses as I got older. I took to hiking as I moved to the mountains of Georgia and Tennessee and spent long weekends camping at state parks all over North America, as far as Hawaii. Since moving to North Carolina in 2017 while I was pregnant with my daughter I have continued to nuture my passion for outdoors while raising my daughter in these beautiful mountains, hiking and exploring together, including our "Waterfall Wednesday" adventures that kept us sane during the pandemic.  I have a background in medicine and college level education as a physician assistant and associate professor, however when I became a mother to my daughter my new passion became childhood development, specifically emotional and social. Despite my traditional educational upbrininging and higher education learning, I found myself naturally drawn to nontraditional learning models for children, including home schooling, unschooling and nature based schooling. This passion grew inside me as my daughter continued to grow (much faster than I wanted!), all along wishing there was a place she could join others to expand her experiences, and when I finally had the opportunity to purchase a beautiful dream come true farm in the Foothills of Western North Carolina, the first root I planted was Learning In Nature Enrichment School in 2022. I am currently working on obtaining my Nature Based Education Certification through the Eastern Region Association of Forest and Nature Schools to further enhance my qualifications as a nature based program administrator and educator.