We visited Costa Rica in 2007. I think this might be when I first realized how much I love nature.

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My very first tree-planting -- this one in the Costa Rican rainforest.

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My friends Firouz and Kourosh Saghri each planted a tree, too...One tree at a time to clean our air and save our planet.

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This preserve is the animals' home; we were just visitors. Nicely, this guy let us swim in his (unchlorinated) watering hole.

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Meet Tarzan, Jane and Boy Newhouse. (My mom wrote this caption.)

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Ya think I'm havin' a good time?

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Did my parents forget to tell me something? Maybe this is why I love nature so much.

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My mom took Grandma Bea and me to Yosemite in 2009. Mom and I hiked up to Vernal Fall.

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Our friend Ruthie showed us all around Yosemite -- kind of her "backyard."

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The Sequoias are awesome. Hundreds of years old. And you can actually walk "inside" some of them.

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Leave it to a Sequoia to put things in perspective.

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Aren't these cool? The cones of the sugar pine trees are HUGE.

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Pretty incredible scenery, huh?

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You never know what you'll find when you pick up a leaf around Yosemite! Talk about an eco-system!

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Ira, our guide and Ruthie's friend, taught me all about the different trees in the area. And he yelled at people whenever they littered. Great going, Ira!

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Looking at this photo is a great way to get through a dreary winter day in NYC.

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I took this of Mom. You can see Half Dome in the background on the right.

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At Bass Lake just outside Yosemite.

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Man (and boy) against nature. Huge slabs of granite like this formed Yosemite National Park.

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Just another moment of enjoying trees and the great outdoors.

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This is my first day of volunteering with MillionTreesNYC.

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We met some great people that day. We're in the St. Alban's section of Queens.

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We're getting ready to plant a lilac tree in someone's front yard. MillionTreesNYC beautifies NYC's neighborhoods. And the extra trees help keep the air cleaner.

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The hole has to be 3x the size of the tree roots. Hard work, but I'm digging it...

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We learned it was important not to put the mulch too close to the tree trunk.

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My friend Noah and me, hanging around Central Park one spring day...

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I guess NYC isn't all that bad, especially when you're in Central Park.

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I promise, Noah didn't do all the rowing...

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Each year, NYRP sponsors a cookout and sleepover for neighborhood kids in the Swindler's Cove area. I volunteered to help. So did Mom.

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First we had to help pitch tents for the families who were sleeping over.

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Ever notice it doesn't feel like hard work when you love what you're doing?.

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Swindler's Cove has its own vegetable garden, where we picked lots of the veggies for the salad that night.

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There was a falconry show at the Swindler's Cove sleepover. This owl was just a baby.

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Awesome!

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You can't have too many trees. So I bought friends Richard and Marcia a "Twisty Baby, Contorted Locust" for their Montauk yard -- and then helped plant it.

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Everybody's getting into the picture. (Actually, we had to pull Marcia over; she was busy watching her Brazilian team play in the World's Cup that day.)

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Me and "Twisty Baby": It's supposed to get to be 25-feet tall.

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Isabelle, Marcia (taking photo) and I took a bike ride around the Montauk Bluffs.

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I've just arrived in Wyoming, getting ready for a 2-week backpacking trip in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks. I can't wait to get going.

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Testing the Wyoming waters...

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Mom, Dad and I took a bike ride around Teton National Park before I left to meet my camp group.

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I'm going to like this place.

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I think Dad likes it, too.

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My camp mates: The kids were great...

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...so was the scenery...

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...and so was the food. This was a chuckwagon dinner, but most of the time we cooked for ourselves..

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Next year we're all planning to get back together again. I can't wait.

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The digging was really tough; the ground was wet, hard and full of rocks.

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While we were digging the hole to plant the oak tree, we actually found an old piece of underground equipment.

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Our baby oak tree has a new home.

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