Yesterday

Days honestly don't get much better than yesterday.

We started the morning at Audrey's soccer class, where she kicked her first ever goal during the mini-scrimmage at the end. She didn't like when everyone clapped for her, but I think now she's feeling pretty proud of herself.

We got home and Aunt Alicia and Uncle John had a little Skype-birthday-party for Avery, which she loved.

We ate lunch in a very haphazard way while Kai was sleeping (Iain and Audrey on the floor, working on Audrey's Dora-my-first-sewing-project, Avery running around pretending she was the tooth fairy and delivering notes and pennies to everyone).

When Kai woke up from his nap around 1, we left the house and did not re-enter a building until 7:30 last night (and only then because we really had to give the kids baths and get them in bed). It was in the high 70s yesterday with a warm breeze and the kind of day where you don't ever want to think about going inside.

We started by taking Avery's new fishing pole down to the stream next to our house with some bread and a bucket. We fished and waded in the water and chased Kai and clambored down banks to get our hook unstuck and washed off muddy news from climbing back up the muddy bank for about an hour. We didn't catch anything, had tons of fun, and decided to try another stream between home and the birthday party we were headed to later in the afternoon.

We drove past a little road, turned down, and found this beautiful stream down in the bottom of a deep ravine. It felt like we were long-gone from civilization, although we were only 1/4 mile or less from DC's urban sprawl. A little more fishing (no catching of fish), some scrambling across rocks, waiting for bugs to fall down the little waterfall (Avery was especially interested in not leaving until she saw the bugs go overboard, which unfortunately never happened), and more chasing of Kai. He can't stand to be held and doesn't really care that the only thing he has to crawl on are slippery rocks or mud. =)

We were there for another hour then headed to the birthday party, which was at a park. Very low-key, plenty of food, super playground (as an aside, I am an expert on all things playground these days, so when I say "super" playground, you should take my word for it ... big enough for Audrey and Avery to have fun, small enough that Kai also can have fun and will not immediately seriously injure himself, I can see all 3 of them at the same time, shady, close to clean bathrooms,...). Anyway, we had dinner, saw some friends, and just played. Outside. In the beautiful outside. Kai also thinks he's now big enough to go down a slide by himself. He was helped into thinking this the first time when he sat down at the top of the slide (which he's done before, but in the past has then turned around). Yesterday, when he sat down, Avery was behind him and just pushed him down and yelled "Yay, Kai! Mommy, did you see Kai slide by his self?!" She was so proud (I was terrified) and although I was watching the whole thing go down from about 4 feet away, there was nothing I could do about it (maybe I should reconsider my designation of this as a "super" playground). =) Anyway, he laughed the whole way down, ended unharmed, and the next time he got himself to the top of the playground (this time to the very top where the tall twisty slide was), he sat down and just scooted himself more and more until he slid down. Iain was there, watching closely and then grabbed his arm as he started sliding. Kai thinks this is great fun, but I'm a little worried about Monday when Iain is not with us to be his personal chaperone and I don't have long enough arms to rescue Kai from the slide, Avery from the climbing net, and Audrey from the monkey bars at the same time. =)

We finally got home around 7, but as noted above, no one wanted to go inside. So we got out the bikes and took a walk. Kai was going for a walk anyway ... he's turning into a little runaway ... so we needed to catch him. =)

Headed to the stream

Finding a leaf

Leaving town

Audrey fishing

Avery getting ready

Avery's first catch -- a heart-shaped leaf!