Adventures

Most of my days at home are spent trying to think of activities that entertain an infant, tire out an a active dog, and are feasible for me in my current "out of shape" state. Most of the time we just take walks to the park or around the neighborhood, or sometimes we go to the beach. A few of these outings have turned into all-out advetures, though.

Adventure #1 happened a couple of weeks ago when I decided to walk down the local market because I needed some D-cell batteries. I plunked Daniel in the front carrier, put Owen on the leash and off we went. It had been an overcast day, and it had sprinkled earlier that morning, but it hadn't been raining since, so I didn't even think twice about it. The market is only 6 blocks away anyway. Jeff was at home working on the car, so I let him keep working. About 3 blocks into our walk I felt a raindrop. By the next block it was really starting to come down, so I quickly steered us under a big oak tree, hoping that the rain would pass soon. Well, as the minutes went by, it just rained harder and harder. I only had a lightweight jacket on Daniel, and just a t-shirt on myself. Of course I didn't have my phone, so I couldn't call Jeff to come and get us. Pretty soon it was raining sideways and through the tree, so I made a quick dash onto the covered landing of the Bay City Art Center, and old southern plantation looking building with high columns. I was joined by some teenagers who had been over at the skate park. After a few minutes there, still hoping the rain would just pass soon, I saw Jeff drive by and park at the store, still two blocks away. I figured he was looking for us, and that when he didn't find us in the store he would retrace the route and see us, but he headed in another direction, thinking we took the scenic loop to the store. Soon though, he passed by again. This time I waived frantically from our covered spot, but he didn't notice, so I just decided to go for it. The unfortunate thing about the front carrier is that it's really not a good idea to run with the child in it, so I walked as quickly as I could, and almost missed Jeff again, but luckily he saw us just as he was backing out of the store parking lot. By the time i got Owen and Daniel in the car, we were all drenched. Daniel was a trooper though. He didn't seem to mind the ordeal one bit, and definitely enjoyed the fact that it gained him some "naked time" as we had to change his whole outfit, dry him off and warm him up when we got home.

Adventure #2 happened on a day when I decided to ramp up my workout routine. It was a beautifully sunny day in Bay City, so I thought a trip to the beach might be nice. I got the boys (Daniel and Owen) in the car and went to the Bay Ocean Spit at Cape Meares. There's about a 1/2 mile of sand dunes that you have to trek though to get to the beach, so I thought it would be a good workout. Well, it would be a good workout if I was just walking the dunes on my own, but of course I had an 11 pound infant strapped to my chest and an energetic dog pulling on the leash. Eventually I just let Owen off the leash and let him tire himself out with running up and down all the dunes, but I still had to carry Daniel and myself to the beach. By the time we reached it I was exhausted, but then to make matters even more interesting, the wind was howling on the beach. I had brought the "chuck-it" to throw the tennis ball for Owen, and if I through it into the wind, the ball literally went staight up in the air, landed 10 feet in front of me and started rolling back. When I through it with the wind it traveled twice as far as usual and Owen had to fight the wind coming back. Daniel was pretty surprised by the wind, jolting whenever he got a face full of it. We didn't stay on the beach long. We treked back through the dunes, and both Owen and Daniel immediately fell asleep in the warm car on the ride home.

Adventure #3 acutally included Jeff too. Last Sunday was a beautiful day, so we thought it would be fun to get outside. One of the many rivers that flows through the area is called the Kilchis, and we had never been to it, so we decided to go explore. After driving around for a while with Owen the back whining the whole time, we stopped along the side of a dirt road where we could see a bit of a deer trail heading to the river. Farther up-stream we had seen lots of people playing on the banks and swimming the river, but we wanted to find our own little spot to play so Owen could have free reign. Well, our litte trail dead-ended on a steep bank that dropped immediately down to a deep spot in the river, so we had to bush-whack a little ways but we eventually found a good, rocky bar with a nice, deep swimming hole for Owen. He loves fetching his tennis ball in the deep water. There were frogs and tadpoles all over and good skipping stones, so we entertained ourselves for a good hour or so on this beautiful, quiet stretch of the river. It would be a great place to back to on a hot day with our swimsuits on.