Springtime idylls

Autumn and spring are obviously the best seasons for enjoying the outdoors (if your enjoyment is based solely on comfortable temperatures and tree and shrubbery displays like mine is, not like some seasonal sport or something), but around here these between seasons can be totally unpredictable and sometimes practically non-existant.  Autumn starts late most years.  Sometimes there's none of it at all in September and it can switch back and forth during October to the point where the spring flowers get confused and come out.  But it always eventually starts and looks like itself with the crisp air and colorful leaves. 

Spring, though, is much less reliable.  Usually it spends the first quarter being winter, the last quarter being summer, and the time in between changing between the two while raining.  Actual pleasantly warm sunny spring days in the sixties and low seventies are so random that when they actually happen, you feel like a chump if you don't get outside and enjoy it for as long as possible.

This weekend was a gorgeous spring weekend.  The weather was great and the the flowering trees are really taking off.  Didn't get enough of my to-do list done but better than that, spent plenty of time outside.  Saturday we took a walk to the "Whole Foods Playground" (a nearby park so named because the green and brown colors reminded Eli of the Whole Foods logo).  Here are all my peeps in front of a neighbor's forsythia bush:

 

Gettin friggity fresh with it on the corner:

 

Then once we got to the actual playground, we were only there a short time before tiny Miss Rumbleguts pooped all out her tutu all over my lap.  Not very ladylike!  Here we are under a tree secretly covered in liquid dookie, on my way to walking home with her:

The next day I woke up and said (okay, whined) "Why can't we ever randomly do something fun?!"  Nic said what about the zoo since we are members, but uch, between the guaranteed two hours of sitting in traffic on 76 and then finding parking on a gorgeous weekend day, and also I think the new children's zoo opened that weekend.  It was probably like Mardi Gras in the quarter, but with slighly less of a vomitty odor in the air.  Then I called Sally who randomly had an awesome idea - meeting up at the Grounds for Sculpture in Trenton: http://www.groundsforsculpture.org/.  Way easier to get to, and way cooler too.  It was like walking through someone's creepy dreams, but with more peacocks!  It took a little while to finally find Sally and Leo after we got there.  While we were waiting, the boys climbed all over these rusty circle things:

Mmmm, tetanus.

 

Then Zeb picked up a petrified dog turd to show me, and I only got mildly freaked out, good job me.  The kids climbed around some more:

 

 

and Nic tried calling Sally:

 

 



but we still couldn't find each other.  So we stood around a little bit:

 

then Eli found an innocent lady enjoying the sunshine and decided to wreck her day:

 



 

The middles found one of the peacocks nearby.  I love peacocks.  I might no longer be the animal-crazy girl I was back in the day when I had the dogs and the cat and the parrot and the lizard and the rats etc and dreamed of someday owning goats and exotic livestock, but if and when we someday have a big house with some land, I definitely want some peacocks wandering the grounds.  They seem pretty low-maintanence.  Nic, take note - peacocks!  Anyway, the peacock let Wolfie and Zeb get unbelievably close:

 



Then, after more waiting:

Where are you, Aunt Sally?

Sally popped up!

 

Blah!

 

And Leo, of course:

 

Together, we wandered through the Forest of the Subconscious:

which ended in a box Sally described as being ripped straight from her own dreams:

Zeb suddenly felt less safe around Aunt Sally



 

Zeb found another creep reading a book:

Famous works of art were contemplated:

 

 

Perhaps not famous but definitely contemplative

 

We took a rest at a table set with a meal by a pond, but only one of us actually ate:

 

 

Full, mommy!

 

Zeb used his ogre skills to find an ogre-licious dinner:

 

Mmmmmmmmmmmmeat!

 

And Aunt Sally continued to disguise her favoritism:
 

 

Nope, can't tell who she likes the best at all, especially considering most of the "Zeb POV" shots were actually taken by Aunt Sally

 

Then we found a poker game that needed another player, and the boys tried to secretly imbibe:

 

 

Right after this Wolfie and I spotted a white peacock, but it disappeared around a corner before Leo could see it.  He tried to track it down without success.  Then we headed for the parking lot, briefly examining a robot dude on the way:

 

Yes, that is what you think it is

 

Then, mere moments after parting with Sally and Leo and driving away, who did we spot but the elusive white peacock on top of a building!

 

Eeeyoy! (That's what sound peacocks make)

We tried calling Sally and Leo to tell them, but they didn't pick up.  Dang!  Anyway, a great time was had by all, and I'd definitely recommend the place!  Gotta go do the steps!