Sunday, April 01, 2007

Outdoors and tag sale season

What a great week it was to live around here. Every day last week we were outside at a school playground, park or beach. Except one afternoon when we went to play at the house of some friends. Yesterday we went to the best playground, over near grandma's house. It's at a school and the set-up is awesome. It's a circle with openings at opposite ends- well, I know a circle has no ends, they're just opposite each other. The circle part is a wood-like deck system and every 10 feet or so there is a slide, tunnel or other climber that the kids can take. In the middle of the circle is a rubber like trail surrounded by woodchips with some park benches perfect for moms. The best thing about this playground is that for people watching more than one child, there's nothing that would lead them to take off in opposite directions, as they always seem to do. We were there over an hour and then we went back to grandma's house and the kids ran around for another hour chasing bubbles, balls and other available amusements. Superman was awake for all of 45 seconds on our way home before conking out for a nap over an hour and half long.

Today we went out to the favorite new trail in the woods for another exploring trip. For 2 boys that have such varied interests, we're lucky that they both enjoy these little expeditions as much as they do. We followed a bumblebee, watched water striders on the stream, found the best twisty vines in the woods and took our own version of a path to get where we wanted to go. It was fun and tired them out after an hour and a half. Superman fell asleep while I was carrying him home and took a quick nap.

Yesterday also marked what I think may be the start of tag sale season. In case tag sale is a regional term- it's also garage sale, yard sale and rummage sale season. We hit 2 tag sales yesterday, both hosted by schools. We hit the jackpot on kids books, always my favorite section, at the second tag sale they were 12 for a dollar and we found Berenstain Bears, Franklin, Hot Wheels and Star Wars. The kids got a bunch of junk, but it was a box for 50 cents at one tag sale and a bag for a dollar at the other tag sale. Even if they only play with the stuff until Tuesday, we'll just throw it in the attic until we have a tag sale of our own. I abhor pack rat behavior except when it comes to the kid stuff and books, I guess. I love buying them books. While they do have a lot of toys, I don't mind buying small stuff. Tonight we're playing with Marble Works. It's an awesome track system that we set up so the marbles race through tunnels, down chutes, over jumps and to the finish. It's great for them to see how to set up stuff like that even though they're not quite old enough to make their own tracks yet. Of course they just like to race the marbles through the tracks that we make. Right now, Superman is sending marbles through the tracks and Hot Wheels is playing with his cars on a Little Tikes race track mountain that we picked up at a tag sale last year.
Nothing training related to report. It was an okay week. This coming week is the break between class sessions at the gym, so I might sleep in a bit for a couple days. It's birthday/Easter/my sister visiting week so we'll be busy.

Pregnancy status: 21 weeks, 133 to go.

2 comments:

Triteacher said...

Yep, "tag sale" is regional. Thanks for the explanation. I'm with you on the exceptions to the pack rat rule - especially with books. As a reading teacher, I applaud that sort of pack rat behavior!

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