A walk to the park

We've had great evenings the past two nights .... the weather has been beautiful, I've been able to wrap work up fairly early, and the kids and I have walked over to our neighborhood playground.

Last night Taipan was wanting to throw stuff, so I suggested we walk over to a little path nearby that goes through some woods, ends at our park. It was really fun walking with them - this is the most relaxed I'd felt taking them both on a walk like this by ourselves. In the past it tended to end up where one kid was way ahead of the other, and not usually wanting to slow down and wait. Or they'd want to go in different directions. Or they'd both want to be carried. That kind of thing.

Not so last night. I think part of it is my increased ability to go with the flow and be more relaxed in general, and part of it is where the kids are right now. We had a great time exploring our neighborhood. Taisim stopped to visit just about every tree that we passed, and when we got to the path, we all enjoyed throwing rocks into the woods and into a tiny creek.

Here Taisim is jumping off of the mulch around a tree, and Taipan is showing me all of the rocks he is going to throw at once to make a big splash:


We played for a bit on the slides and playground, then made our way over to a small hill nearby. The kids ran, walked, hopped and rolled down the hill, and I've got video of each method for getting down the hill. Here is Taipan at the bottom after rolling, with Taisim following on foot:


We also sat/stood at the top of the hill and chatted for a bit, with the kids covering me with grass. Here are pictures Taipan took to show all of the grass they had put on me:





On our way out, we stopped in the parking lot to watch a father & son playing catch with a football. This is a lamp post near where we were standing, and it quickly became a "drum lamp", with us all making music on it!