Cabin Fever

Having regular outings has one disadvantage for me in that when the children don't get out of the house after too long they go into distructo mode (due to overwhelming boredom) and the house gets torn apart. We got out of the house today to the Central Park in San Ramon. It is FANTASTIC!!!

There is a large mushroom shaped fountain in the middle of the children's area with a shallow pool that the children can play in. This is the head of a cement river that flows down to a beautiful man-made pond. The water comes out fairly cold, but on hot days it's rather refreshing!

All around the water play area are play equipment structures with swings, slides, things to climb on and sand pits. After a while the boys discovered that they could get sopping wet, go roll in the sand and then rinse off in the mushroom. They thought that was great fun and did it over and over. It wasn't until we got home that we realized they had worn the sun block off their shoulders with that little trick and they had a slight, yet uncomfortable sunburn.
Having Garrett join in our fun meant that our usual convoy of STUFF nearly tripled. Our steak out spot was quite impressive with all the bags and folding chairs...beach towels strewn about and the stroller decked out for the little prince.

I just sat and watched the children, which was great for Garrett and I. The one snag came when Elle, who is potty training came to tell me that she had to go to the bathroom. On the one hand I was thrilled that she was willing to go to the bathroom at the park and that I didn't have a raging mess to clean up...YUCK, but what do I do with all this STUFF and the baby? I couldn't haul everything to the bathroom. I put Garrett in the front pack and then had Ethan sit with our things while I walked her to the potty.

Sure enough, she pooped in the toilet. HURRAY!!! We called Daddy at work to share the excitement.

The next major attraction for Hunter and Ethan was a big sloppy mud pit, which ironically enough had a sign (covered in mud, of course) that said "Please no mud or sand in the water". Seeing as how the patrons of this particular area are mostly five and under and are most likely still illiterate, I'll have to assume that the sign was there as a matter of principle.