An Evening at the Park

We have really been enjoying the beautiful weather lately. On Monday, I called hubby out in his office and asked him what he thought about eating dinner early and going to the park after. He asked if I had started cooking yet, and since I hadn't, he suggested we just go pick up some burgers and take them to the park with us.

He didn't have to ask me twice. The chicken went back into the fridge, and I was set!

So that's just what we did. We ate our burgers at a little picnic table and then enjoyed the evening. Ruthi had a great time swinging, sliding and climbing.

CJ asked his buddy Jake to go, so they took off on the trails that go through the park and goofed off.

We witnessed a duck fight while we were there. I had never seen anything like it. There were a few mallards and a few white ducks (I have no idea what they are called!) I heard a ruckus and then saw one of the mallards being ganged up on by the 3 white ducks. I'm not even joking - one of the white ones was holding that poor mallard under water! They were quite angry about something and were very loud about it. The two that were doing the most fighting really had their feathers ruffled! It was quite entertaining.

We were having a great time, but had one minor incident. Ruthi decided she wanted me to swing so she could "push" me. So I was swinging and letting her "push". All of a sudden, I went back and my head collided into hers. I jumped out to pick her up off the ground. It had to hurt, because my head was throbbing.

I felt like such a terrible mom, that I had not even thought about that happening. How was she supposed to know not to come closer to me? But she was fine in less than a minute and playing again.

I, however, had a headache the rest of the night.

She's one tough cookie!

She wanted to push me some more, so I made sure I was watching her every second and was ready to stop quick if she stepped too close.

We were only there for a couple hours, and we took over 100 pictures! How crazy is that? I don't know how many there were exactly, but there are 95 that I kept. I deleted all the ones that were out of focus or just not good. And I deleted a lot of them! Sheesh!

But I'm NOT posting them all - don't worry! But here are a few:





Look! I got a picture of CJ smiling!


Right after the "incident".


OK, so I don't really like this thing, but Chip was trying to teach Ruthi how to get to the top of it. He was teaching her to move her feet side to side and work her way around the spirals. She was so cute, as she would move her feet, she would say, "Side to side. Side to side."


But then she saw some bigger kids climbing it, and they were going straight up. So she was determined to try it that way. It was, after all, much faster!


She made it! (With Dad's help, of course!)


And then Chip and CJ were being silly. Chip "helped" his little boy climb up too! He didn't want him to feel left out! LOL!


And Ruthi helped Mommy get down the slide.


I thought this pic was cute. Chip took it (obviously) as we headed off down the trail. That's CJ and Jake out in front.


So, I suppose that was more than a few. But hopefully it will make up for my lack of posting pictures as often as someone (I'm not naming names...ahem....Dad...ahem) would like for me to!

(Although, since he and my Mom just set sail on a cruise ship to Alaska today, it will be over a week before he sees these!)