Now I'm in a place where I want to start documenting the cool stuff the kids and I do again, like the trip Pinkie (formerly Bunny Boo) and I took to the art museum with my sister for her birthday. We don't get out and do a lot of cool stuff anymore now that the kids are in school, but it would be fun to get it all started up again.
One of the first big trips we took as a family after our big move was going out on a hike. It's a location we plan to go hiking at again, as soon as our car is on the road and once the weather's nice again. I used to hike there all the time. The kids particularly loved it out there. They've always been big on nature. As you can see, they really loved being able to kick back and sunbathe.
That's one thing we've always loved doing as a family, getting out in the warm weather and enjoying a good trip into nature. I can't wait for opportunities to get hiking again. Of course, coming into winter that might be a bit trickier. Walks to the library just aren't the same. However spring will be here sooner than we know and we'll be able to get out there and hiking again before long. It's great exercise and helps build life-long healthy habits. It's something I always loved as a kid and I love being able to share with my kids. Best of all, aside from cost of transportation, hiking is generally completely free. That makes it one of the best opportunities for family time out there!
For Pinkie's last birthday, as I mentioned, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts. They were holding an exhibit on one of Pinkie's greatest influences, Picasso. The whole thing was a surprise, but she was super excited when we got there. I could probably write a whole post on the whole experience, but seeing as this is just a catch up, I figure I should stick to the fact that the whole trip was awesome and a huge success.
Pinkie seemed really inspired by that experience, and it's one we're going to have to repeat again some time soon. It's just hard to find a time to take her all the way into the city to go with school and everything else.
Pinkie has grown up so much and really come into her own. She's starting to pick up skills as a writer and wants to get more experience with it. Maybe next time I can have her write about the trip in her own words. That's one thing that's nice about having a blog for family adventures. Once the whole family is old enough, there's no reason they can't participate in the writing as well! It would be such a good experience for them.
We also decided we were going to try our luck at gardening this year. Bear was the most excited about that one. We got some supplies at Home Depot and put together a lovely little garden. We set the whole thing up on our back porch, taking up almost all of it. It was impressive to see the way everything climbed around and overgrew. Our porch became a little Garden of Eden.
The kids all wanted to help with this project, from carrying pots and containers to planting and watering. Their favorite part was when the plants began to flower, showing their hard work was finally paying off. We had some really great talks about the life cycle of plants. Almost every day they wanted to come outside to see the progress, and every day they were so excited to see how much everything had grown. I didn't think they'd see terribly much difference from day to day, but they always swore they did. Best of all, there was always something to discover, from the mushrooms that grew when it rained to the different colors of flowers for each different color of bean in the garden.
Of course, the favorite part of it all was getting to eat the final product. We didn't have much in the way of results this year. We had some problems with pesky squirrels getting into our tomatoes. The beans were fine, but the other plants didn't really produce much. We learned a lot for next year. However the foods we did get were fantastic. As you can clearly see, Pinkie's favorite part was the tomatoes. We grew a few varieties, but the Lemon Boy and the cherry tomatoes were her all time favorite.
Some day we'd love to have a place where we could have a large enough garden to keep us fed all summer. I won't put myself under the illusion that we'll be able to keep ourselves fed through winter. Putting up that much food would be difficult. With four kids in the house we eat a lot of food. However, I'm definitely happy that they gravitate towards the healthy stuff. They'd pick garden fresh vegetables over junk food just about any day of the week. That's how it should be, right? At least I know they'll grow up healthy.
The summer brought with it a lot more adventures, like going to see the fireworks in the city, something that was a tradition every year. We went two years in a row, but last year just wasn't what it usually was. The fireworks were held really late. Bear and Creeper (formerly Piggy) almost slept through the whole thing! The wait was worth it though. Also, I was able to score this rare picture of Link. He's not a fan of having his picture taken, so that was a real tough thing to manage.
The fireworks display itself was beautiful. It was every bit as epic as I'd hoped it would be. The kids, though tired from the long wait, loved watching the fireworks and the way they reflected on the river. We may not have a chance to get into the city for them again in the future, if they even continue to run it, but this was a memory we were glad to have. We even had a friend along with us, making it extra special. That whole trip was quite the adventure, but in the end it's a night we were definitely glad we had. The kids even talked about it being the best night ever for a while to come.
Then there's Pinkie's newfound love of role playing games. She's gotten involved with the D&D club at her school as well as playing in games with the group of adults that plays at our house every week. She was so excited when my friend and I took her into the city to get her first set of dice for game. She came home with her own dice bag.
Once we were done at the game store we went for a walk around town. She said the best part of town was the rainbow sidewalks. If memory serves they were painted that way just after gay marriage was legalized in all fifty states. Pinkie's become a part of the GSA at school as well, which seems to be something that's become really important to her. This might be another good thing for her to write about, when she gets a chance, all of it, actually. I can imagine how much she'd have to say about her involvement in clubs at school, games, as well as going into town whenever we've gone. I bet she'd be quite the writer. This could really be a fun experience for her!
Then there was the trip to the aquarium with Bear. Again, Sable (the friend who went on all our other adventures) took us on this one. Bear was so excited about this trip. It necessitated finding the perfect outfit, because you can't make the trip into town without the perfect outfit. This was also Bear's first solo adventure with the adults. This was a very big day.
Though the aquarium was crowded, Bear ran from fish exhibit to fish exhibit. The major excitement early on was finding Nemo. Then there was an exclamation of "I found Dory!" Then all the other kids at the aquarium started shouting they found Dory too. Bear felt really proud to be the first one to find Dory.
This trip was talked about for weeks, which is something impressive when a four year old is involved. Typically Bear moves on to the next thing pretty rapidly, only bringing out the adventures when something inspires it, like they day we went apple picking. The fact that this stuck out so much really said a lot for how much fun it really was.
Yeah, we've been up to a lot in the past few years. The kids have grown up quite a bit. We've seen a lot of changes in that time too. In all this time we've made friends and lost them or grown apart. We've gone on several adventures. There was a lot of unstructured fun too, as you can see with Link playing on the tire swing in the back yard. It's been quite the amazing few years.
Now it's time to get back to the roots and start talking about the new adventures we're going to have. There will be new challenges and new interesting stories. Hopefully Pinkie will start to write some of her own entries. Maybe in a couple of years Link will want to join her. This could be a brilliant account of everything we do together, a way for our friends and family to keep up on what we're doing, even if they can't see us all the time. It's a snapshot into our world, complete with pictures sometimes. There is so much happening in our lives, so much going on, that even having no one else read it, we'll be able to look back as a family and see where we've been all this time. That alone will be wonderful.
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