Family Outing

Kindra told me a couple weeks ago that she had a surprise for me for my birthday. She wanted us to go somewhere fun, which I thought would mean we would be without the kiddies (um… just kidding?), but it turned out it was a family outing.

I’ll take this opportunity to mention that going places with the kids has become easier lately. We’re a little better a preparing to head out, and the kids have become a lot better about being in the car. Danica’s pretty content most of the time to sit in her car seat (we often let her choose a book or doll to bring that she plays with), and Colin’s outgrowing his newborn aversion to being in his car seat.

Anyway, it turns out that Kindra had decided that we were going to the apple orchards in Yucaipa, which is about seventy-five miles away from us. She’d taken her classes there when she taught second grade, and we’ve always wanted to go to orchards, so it seemed like a decent early-fall activity (yes, it’s been autumn-like weather the past few days – that would be low-70’s in California). The drive ended up taking about an hour and twenty minutes, most of which The Boy slept, and The Girl almost ended up sleeping until I had to call my parents.

We had a good time walking around. I took Danica to a little petting zoo area they had there, where she just stared at the goats, chickens, pig, and llama… The little wuss wouldn’t pet any of them, and she didn’t want to play on the haystacks they had set up, either. I suppose to be fair, she was still quite a bit younger than a lot of the kids there, but that didn’t seem to stop her when we were in Iowa and she tore around a playground they had set up at the mall…

It was a fun time for our little family, but I think it’ll be more fun if we convince another family to head up there with us so that Danica has somebody to run around with. It did open my eyes to the possibilities for family outings ahead of us. We’re getting closer and closer to the whole “family vacation” thing, which is kinda scary...

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I know I mentioned that Danica loves to dance, but she was really having fun today when we stopped to have lunch. We were at a little shopping village waiting in line at a food stand which had a patio and a guy singing along to music. She really wanted to hold hands and “dance” (i.e., jump) around. You have to keep in mind that The Girl hadn’t had her nap, so she was a little wired. She ended up dancing solo for a bit off to the side. I have some footage, so I’ll have to get around to posting it.

Oh, in addition to twirling, jumping, and lifting her leg up, Danica’s recently added straddle splits to her routine. Her mom was egging her on a couple of days ago after (I think) she accidentally did the splits at home. I haven’t seen it since, but I’m sure if I ask at the right time…

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FYI, we’re trying something new tonight – Colin will be sleeping in his crib in Danica’s room. See, we’ve been weak and let our kids take over. Neither of us has slept in our bed in a couple of weeks, because Colin used to wake up within thirty minutes of his mom getting into bed and I got tired of trying to lay absolutely still during the night. So… we’re putting the two together. I suppose it might work, but I have a feeling they’re going to wake each other up, which should be fun.