Toddlers, Flamingos, and Youtube

Well, only one toddler to be exact, my toddler.

 

She has this thing with flamingos. 

 

 

And here he is

 

He's been a part of the family for a little over a year.  It's amazing how a free party favor can become so much of a ... friend, obsession, favorite thing. 

At first he was just there.  A part of the mass of toys that she would play with on occasion, but with an imagination came lots of interaction.  He often puts on a tutu and is a princess.  She puts him down for a nap and feeds him on a regular basis.  Today he had oatmeal and strawberries for breakfast.  He also has a hole, which makes him sad, so I blow him up on a daily basis, which then makes him happy.

We also have questions. 

Enter youtube.  For a long time I didn't do youtube.  It mostly seemed like this complete waste of time that had way too many conversations start with "have you seen this movie  on youtube?"  But then we bought a house and I needed to fix things and yay youtube.  It's also great at answering toddlers questions, like "what do moose say?"

I can't remember what question sparked the flamingo youtube adventure, but this video is amazing.  She asks to watch it regularly.  There really isn't any way to describe it, you just have to watch.  

 

Visitor

It's been exciting this summer to receive visitors.  We think Richmond is fabulous and we love sharing it and exploring it with those we love.  This time is was Steve's mom, Cindy. 

Cadance had an absolute blast with her "Grammie." I had an absolute blast not having to bear the whole burden of entertaining Cadance.  Steve had an absolute blast because he didn't have to work on Saturday at all and could play with us all day. 

Our adventures started at Chiles Peach Orchard, just west of Charlottesville.  The hour and a half drive was equalized because of the gorgeous pastures and farm land we saw along the way.  And, of course, the wonderful company.

 

 

And here we are at the orchard.  This is the third time Cadance has gone to pick fruit since we've lived in Virginia.  She loves it.  Although I'm pretty sure she enjoyed strawberries more, simply because they easier to see, pick, and eat.  

 

 

But, she was able to get to some of them, and luckily the peaches were easy enough to pluck from the tree.  Here she is with Cindy.  

 

And here she is enjoying the fruit of here labor. 

Seriously, they had amazing peaches.  Just look at this guy.

Afterwards we couldn't resist the peach ice cream.  We may have also brought home peach donuts and peach syrup. 

Instead of driving straight home we explored a little bit and found Greenwood's Gourmet Grocery.  Seriously, super fun.  I think I ate the best chicken salad sandwich I've ever had in my life.  If you are headed to the Charlottesville area look them up.  It's amazing. 

We finished the evening by freezing about 15 lbs of peaches.  I can now live through winter :)

Saturday we drove south to Pocahontas State Park.  Seriously pretty.  Here's a couple of the gorgeous things we saw. 

I'm pretty sure he was posing for us.

 

 

 

We went for a hike around a small lake they have.  

 

Before we left we went inside a nature center and checked out a junior ranger pack.  Mostly it seemed like the stuff was for someone older than her, but they had a pair of binoculars.  Check out this explorer.

 

Although I'm pretty sure the thing we got the biggest kick out of was looking at us.  

Also on this hike we were introduced to the coolest looking mushrooms I have ever seem, like neon orange.  Probably would have made me sick if I ate it, but it was cool to look at. 

After a long walk we thought it best to cool off in the water.  Cadance agreed.

 

 

Too bad floaties weren't allowed at the state park pool and we had to put them away.  But, we had a really fun time.  There was a kids water playground and Cadance really liked going down the slide. 

 

Even though exhausted we made it to the Hogshead Café and enjoyed some fabulous BBQ.  Deep fried hot dogs wrapped in bacon.  Hamburgers on pretzel rolls.  Sweet potato fries dipped in a honey butter sauce.  Meat so tender it fell off rib bones.  Yes please. 

 

Some great adventures added to our list. 



Some Garden Excitement!

We have been super excited about our garden this year, and although I was hoping to do more of a play by play in the season, not having a computer for a month, etc got in the way.  So, here's a little excitement in the back yard

First up, lettuce!  This is the last head of lettuce.  It will be gone soon.  It was so thrilling eating salads made out of lettuce from our garden. 

Then there's this little guy.  It looks like other peppers are about to come, but so far only this one has started to grow.  We received 4 pepper plants for free from a farmer's market so I figure anything we get is good. 

Our bean plant is about 6 feet tall.  It's out of control.  Any advice anyone has about controlling those little vines would be fabulous. Hopefully we'll see more beans and less flowers soon. 

And last but not least...our tomato.  Well, we have 7 tomatoes growing, but only one is turning red.  Granted, I'm hoping we get more than 7 tomatoes (I paid $10 for 2 plants), but seeing that it's actually working is so exciting. I look out of the kitchen window basically every time I'm in there to check on him.  Steve and I are both chomping at the bit to eat him. 

Sorry there's no picture, but Cadance's favorite part of the garden is the pink flower she picked out from Home Depot.  I'm honestly surprised it's still alive.  But, it's growing well.  And, now that Cadance has a small pool in the backyard she pours buckets of water on them because, "they are hungry and need to eat."

On the not so good side we planted 6 watermelon seeds and 8 cucumber seeds and nothing even sprouted.  We have almost an entire 4x4 foot square empty because it was meant for a watermelon plant.  Oh well, we'll try again next year!

When My Parents Came to Visit

Recently my parents came to visit.  One fun day after another.  Cadance was a trooper.  She loved every minute of it.  And, she still ends every day with, "another fun day," repeating what my mom would say to her every night. 

Here are some highlights. 

The Zoo          

Cadance with the flamingos, which I would say is her favorite bird

This orangutan started chewing the plastic coating off of the fence and then spit it at us.  I'm pretty sure she was bored more than mean, and it was pretty funny

Notice the brown pellets of animal food.  Cadance loved throwing "rocks" at all the animals and in the water.

My dad trying to get the peacock to open his feathers, too bad it didn't work.  Cadance called them pecans.

Notice the red cheeks and sweaty hair.  She loved every minute though

So excited to ride the giraffe on the carousel.

   Belle Isle      

Gorgeous view of the James River

Cadance so excited because she knows what's coming

Going for a walk with Grandma

 

Enjoying the current of the water

 The Greek Festival

Loving the dancing

Not so much loving the food

Cheesing it for the camera in the cathedral

Maymont Park

Bubble fun!

 

Always love the flowers

Looking at the waterfall

Enjoying time with Grandma

Thanks for the week mom and dad!  Good food, good adventures, good conversation!                                                               

Princess

This conversation happened today.

While Cadance was wearing two different tutus at the same time.

And while she was running laps around her play room.

C: Princess Cadance
M: You look more like ballerina Cadance
C: No, princess Cadance
M: Oh
C: Mom is not a princess
M: What, I can't be a princess
C: Mom has no skirt
M: I think princesses can wear pants
C: No, I have a skirt (actually a tutu), tutu, and another skirt

6 months ago Cadance hadn't even heard the word princess; she is now apparently an expert

Goose Induced Euphoria

Before I delve into out goose adventure let me first explain that while living in Richmond I have been hard pressed to see ducks.  They just don't seem to live around here.  It's always such an odd thing.  Geese, however, we have plenty of geese.

But geese are much trickier animals to deal with.  Like they can be mean.  So we haven't really gone out to feed the ducks (or geese) mostly in fear of them attacking my daughter.

Well, last Saturday we left pretty early in the morning for a walk around Maymont Park.  Apparently it doesn't open until 10 am so we found ourselves with an hour to kill.  Luckily right next to Maymont is Byrd Park.  So, we drove over and figured we could hang out, get a couple pics, etc.

We parked right next to a grassy field with tons of geese.  And let me tell you they had quite the impression on Cadance.

Can you see the look of excitement on her face.  She was off and chased those poor geese everywhere.  She really wanted to catch one.

Here's a video of her in action.

At some point, you can hear it in the video, the geese kind of went a little crazy.  Some of them actually started heading in her direction and I was kind of afraid they were going to try and chase her away.  But, luckily, they did not revolt in violence.

After the geese adventure we had a lot of fun enjoying a day of fabulous spring weather.  Here are some pictures that we took.

Garden: Part 2

It's official...we're gardening.

It makes me super excited and super nervous at the same time.  What if nothing grows?  What if things grow but it's all really sucky?  

I guess time will tell.  

We currently have 7 of the 32 squares of our garden filled.  2 carrots, 2 lettuce, radishes, onion, and bok choy.  Bok choy?  Bok choy.  It's kind of a curve ball, but my parents sent it in an Easter package and well, why not?  We like bok choy.  

We've even started to see just a little bit of sprouting

Yes, I know it could be a weed as easily as it could be bibb lettuce, but here's to hoping.

In the next coming days I have our first line up of summer crops to plant: tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, squash, and some marigold for color.