A day at the park

One weekend, even though we were super busy, we took the time to have lunch out as a family. We decided to go to Winter Park for some reason, maybe we had an errand to run in that direction. After lunch at the new fancy Panera on Park Ave, we decided to wander around the park for a bit.

Greyson loved the stage, the fountains, the squirrels and birds to chase, the people and doggies... and we noticed some folks waiting for the train at the station. Remembering that there's an ice cream shop on one of the side-streets, I suggested we hang around to see the train. We took our time, walking down several blocks to the ice cream store. We saw a sandbox tree with its crazy spikes (later I learned that this tree is also called a dynamite tree because its seed pods explode and scatter seeds up to 100 meters. I wonder how they deal with that in Central Park). We got wet in the fountains, and we got our ice cream.

As an aside, before we were 100 feet away from the ice cream store with our treats, they began to melt at an amazing speed. We left puddles where we sat, trying to keep up with the drip-drip-drip down the side of our cones. It wasn't that warm of a day, I think a certain ice cream chain needs to post signs that by leaving the store with your ice cream, you run the risk of depositing half of it on the sidewalk.

So, while we were slurping and running and trying to enjoy our double-scoops, the train arrived! We got close enough to see the engineer waving out the front window, and stopped to watch. Greyson was very excited, but also a little nervous at the noise and the rumble we all felt. He tried to get close to me, although I couldn't pick him up - with my dripping, drooling icy strawberry monstrosity in hand. So he grabbed my arm and huddled behind me a bit until the whistle blowing stopped. We backed off a bit and watched the passengers load and unload, surprised at how short the stop was. The train was on its way and we all waved bye bye, before heading back to the car. Of course we all rinsed ourselves off in the fountain, Mike even cleaned off the sidewalk where we left our ice cream puddles - it was that bad!

A man and his son were feeding peanuts to the pigeons in the park. Greyson was interested and walked over to check out the birds. The man showed Greyson how to surprise the birds and make them all fly off, only to land again for their snack. G had a ball scattering the flock and chasing the pigeons. He didn't want to leave, but he was asleep as soon as we buckled him in the carseat.

Our next adventure looms, airplane trip on Friday... I'm well stocked with new books, toys, stickers, even lollipops!