New things

     Jason and I went out spontaneously!!  Well, as spontaneously as you can get when you need to make sure you have a babysitter.  He found out on Tuesday that Weird Al was playing in Baltimore on Wednesday evening.  Did I think I could find a babysitter on such short notice?  Yes I did.  Things didn't go smoothly exactly and were encumbered by a root canal, but we did make it to the concert and had a wonderful time!  At the concert I realized that I have not been to a concert other than one Winter Jam in Champaign in 5 years!  This blows my mind because music fills a large part of me.  I am not particularly good at any particular performance of music be it singing or instrumental, but I am constantly singing (outloud or in my head) and I love the days when I do get to play around on the piano, dulcimer or fiddle.  So let this Weird Al concert be the first of many in re-visiting that part of life that I love!

     I had noticed a park that looked like it had a pond on one of the routes I run, so the girls and I decided to explore it this week.  It is a small park in a neighborhood, but it is heavily wooded so it is easy to forget you're in the middle of suburbia.  There is a nice pond with a fountain.  We watched a crane for a while and saw him catching and eating fish.  There are evidently some big koi fish in the pond too, and every so often we saw them coming to the top.  We took a picnic and had our lunch there.  We also saw what I have decided must have been a muskrat.  I have noticed a smell too sometimes around the area that I think is muskrats, or ground hogs perhaps.  The tail makes me think it is muskrats though.  Either way, wildlife abounds in Maryland.  Watch for it! (That's an inside joke for Jason)

     We tried some new things this week besides a new park.  Crab pizza.  I read that this is Maryland in pizza form.  The alfredo is seasoned with Old Bay and of course there is crab meat on it.  It was so-so for me.  The kids loved it.  I wouldn't crave it, but if they want it again I wouldn't hate it.  We also played Munchkin for the first time.  It is pretty fun.  Lyla even can hang with it.  We have to help her a little but after we played it through once everyone got the jist of it.  The girls love the funny descriptions of things on the cards and they love to curse or send monsters after me or Jason's pawn.  I think sometimes they don't care if they win or loose as long as they keep me from winning.  I'll just have to try even harder!

   
Sunday some of the girls in Lyla's Girl Scout troop bridged to Brownies.  They had the ceremony at Ladew Gardens.  Ladew Gardens is such an awesome and beautiful place!  It reminds me of Allerton in Illinois, but smaller acreage and more elaborate gardens.  Gwyn's troop helped out with the ceremony and Gwyn finished earning her Junior Aide patch.  Celee was the resident Brownie there to welcome the Daisies to Brownies.  Lyla was the only Daisy there that wasn't bridging, so she got to be the flag bearer.  It was a short and sweet ceremony followed by a scavenger hunt for curious things to find in the gardens.   For instance, there are 12 swan topiaries, a bench made of sticks, a bird house with no door, a topiary fox hunt, a sundial, and lots more interesting things hidden on the property.

 

     I had brought along the dresses I made the girls for Easter and some props.  Jason and the girls indulged me for a while and we took pictures in various places around the gardens.  I think the girls got into it because they kept telling Jason, "Daddy!  Take a picture of me over here!"  or "Take a picture of me smelling these flowers!"  So it ended up being not just my thing.  It was hot though, so we didn't stay horribly long, but we got some neat pics.