"Look up at the stars and not down at your feet" - Our Snow and Stargazing Wonder-filled adventures

That quote has been made even more famous this week with the loss of Professor Stephen Hawkins. The truth is that I have always loved looking at the stars. Whenever life troubles seem so big an evening outdoors looking up at the greatness and vastness of space seems to make all my problems melt away.

In support of the current on-pack promotion, The Great Oreo Cookie Quest, Oreo have challenged bloggers to share their own wonder-filled adventures with the #OreoCookieQuest hashtag. Our family have always enjoyed a good treasure hunt whether it is looking for eggs at Easter or the educational treasure hunts I used to set up in the years we were homeschooling. We've enjoyed many wonder-filled days out visiting museums, observatories and monuments too.

As the boys have grown older, J now a teenager and D nearly a teen too, it has become increasingly difficult to fill their days with wonder and drag them away from their computer games. But the one thing that we can do together as a family that never ceases to amaze them (and us) is our own stargazing adventures.

We had one such night planned - with telescope and hot chocolate at the ready. Along with Oreos to dip and dunk into our hot chocolate.

But then this happened...

Snow...

Winter often provides some of the clearest nights for stargazing but tonight's adventures were thwarted with snow clouds up above leaving visibility low.

But it made me realise that snow itself is another wonder-filled adventure. How rare it is (we hadn't had a proper snowfall where we live for 6 years!), how pure it is, how beautiful it is. The uniqueness of each snowflake.

Just as we can stargaze into the dark sky at night and spot more and more stars each time we look as our eyes adjust to create this gigantic stunning canvas of beauty in the night sky, as the snow falls flake by flake it also creates a wonderful winterland scene like looking out onto a painting.

Both totally awe-inspiring.

So, after playing in the snow, we used our indoor time warming up whilst doing a Stargazing themed Oreo cookie quest.

We plotted a few simple constellations that we've often seen in the night sky leaving one of the crucial stars out. The kids had to find where the missing star would go and fill in the gap with an Oreo.

Then arty D carried on the fun with some snowy themed pictures incorporating Oreos!

We love stars so much that we even named our cat 'Star'.

If you've never tried stargazing before, I'd thoroughly recommend it. We do have a telescope which has enabled the kids to see Jupiter and some of its moons.

Even without a telescope, the moon's features can be seen really well with a good pair of binoculars.

With the naked eye shooting stars can be seen - especially as certain times of year when there are meteor showers (e.g. August's Perseid's meteor shower). You can also spot the space station orbiting the earth at dawn and dusk at certain times (find out more here).

There are also several apps available that can help you identify the names of planets and stars so when you spot a particularly bright star in the sky, pointing your phone or tablet at it will show you what planet or star it is using one of these apps.

One final tip for stargazing...If at all possible head away from town and into the countryside where there is less light pollution and suddenly as if by magic thousands more stars are visible.

So whether your wonderfilled adventures are in snow or in the stars there is much to be learnt and lots of fun to be had with Oreos.

This post is an entry for BritMums #OreoCookieQuest, sponsored by Oreo. You can find out more about the #OreoCookieQuest here and find out how to take part in The Great Oreo Cookie quest currently featured on promotional packs of Oreos.