Picnic in the Park

I decided to play hookie with Tyler yesterday and we went for a picnic at the state park up the road, rather than head off to preschool for the morning. It was BEAUTIFUL out in the morning but was down right HOT by mid-afternoon. (I found myself cussing out my husband by nightfall because he left town and the air conditioner unit is still winterized...so sleeping was not so great in our very hot house last night.)

I love watching Tyler on the playground equipment. He is such a little monkey! That is, until he got his head caught under the gap in the railing when he tried to slide backward off a 5 foot high platform. Not sure how he managed it, but he was hanging by his head for a couple seconds before a friendly nearby mom grabbed his feet and rescued him from his predicament. He cried for less than a minute and was fine. Me? I was slowly making my way down the steep embankment to join him and wasn't close enough to help immediately. He flies down that hill at Mach 5 ahead of me... Thank goodness that other mom was there! My poor heart was beating out of my chest! I swear that kid has taken years off my life with the stunts he's pulled. He's all boy!

You'd think with a beautiful water front park like this that we'd be taking advantage of it all the time (it's a 5 minute drive). But no. I think I'll have to remedy that and plan to visit there a few more times before the really hot weather sets in. I don't do HOT.

It surprised me how many people were laying out in beach chairs by the water. The beach isn't officially open yet and it was the middle of a work day. It was nice to see so many families with kids there. I don't know if you can make them out...but there is a cute family climbing out on the rock jettie in the photo above. (A lot of detail is lost from my photos when they are resized by Photobucket for use in my blog.)

Changing gears; I've had a couple comments in the last week about previous entries. Yes, those are mountains in the distance in my backyard photos. The Poconos, to be exact. The view in the winter time is amazing (no leaves to obscure). As for my MIL's new cabinets? They aren't oak. I believe she told me they are maple. Not sure what kind of stain, but they have a sort of pinkish mauvey peach cast to them. Not sure how well that shows in the photos. It does remind me somewhat of pickled oak (my bedroom furniture is whitewashed pickled oak). I'll ask her next time I speak with her.

Again, off the topic, but the kitten is driving me bonkers. In the last week alone he has found and shredded two rolls of toilet paper (it looked like 2 inches of snow had fallen on the bathroom floor), pulled all the stones out of the little water fountain I have on the bathroom counter and was playing hockey with them on the tile floor at 3am, pulled my ceiling mounted net canopy down while trying to climb it in the bedroom, yanked down my roman shade in the living room, knocked a flower arrangement off the fireplace mantle (how the HECK did he get up there...it's like a 5+ foot high leap), chewed clean through the neck strap of my digital camera, tipped over the kitchen garbage can, and left teeth marks on my laptop power cord. Yikes. I think I should change his name from Spartacus to Dennis the Menace...or Demon Seed...or something.