Park Morning

Yesterday I had to take the minivan in to get the power steering line fixed. (As my dad says, once you pay off a car you start paying it off again in repairs.)  Since it's FINALLY summer here (as opposed to all that rain and cold weather we had during... real summer) and because sitting in a waiting room with a 4 year old for 2 hours didn't exactly appeal to me, I decided Tess and I would walk to Columbian Park.

The car tech guy looked at me like I was crazy when I explained what my plan was. "Wow - that's FAR away!" he exclaimed. "It's just over a mile. That's not that far." I replied. "Plus, she'll be in the stroller."

He shook his head. "That's a LONG walk."

In all seriousness, since when is that a long walk? It was maybe 2.5 miles round trip. It only took me 15ish minutes to walk there. I dunno. It was worth it to me!

Granted, it was HUMID. Really, really humid. So even though it wasn't deadly hot and I wasn't walking all that fast, I was pretty sweaty and gross by the time we reached the park.

We were there before 10am, so we played on the playground while we waited for the zoo to open. Tess was in rare form since she had my undivided attention - no brothers to compete with!

She was pretty cute in those lopsided sunglasses of hers!

I can't believe we didn't go to the zoo a single time this summer! But honestly, every time I thought about it it was raining or chilly. It just never happened. We made up for it this time and visited everything.
Of note:

• Tess is still scared of pygmy goats. 
• But she looooves butterflies and we spent a good 20 minutes in the butterfly enclosure. 
• She does not like the prairie dog tunnels without her brothers.
• If you eat your snack of grapes and Pirate Booty in front of the gibbon cage, you will have furry gawkers. Seriously, those gibbons looked so longingly at our snacks I felt bad for them. (But not bad enough to move.) I teased Tess that if she wasn't careful the gibbon would steal some of her grapes. After that she turned around in her seat (away from the gibbon cage) and huddled over her precious snack, no matter how much I explained that there was no way the gibbon could reach her.
• We even got to see the otters play, which is rare because usually they're just laying around when we see them. They wrestled in the water for a good 10-15 minutes; it was very entertaining! Perhaps they were in the water this time because it was so dang hot. Also, I'm not otter expert, but they seemed to be pretty big and well-fed otters. (Translation: we don't see them moving much because they are lazy otters.) ((The Lazy Otters would be a good name for a jug band.))

It was almost time for us to leave when we heard the train whistle blow. It then occurred to me that we hadn't taken a single train ride at the park this whole year! How could this have happened? (Never mind the week at Disney - this is tradition.) So we bought our tickets and boarded the train and then proceeded to swelter in the sun for 10 minutes while the conductor went to get her phone. Yes. Because phones are so important when you have several adults and impatient children waiting for their train ride. Blergh. (It occurred to me then that driving the train at Columbian Park in the off season is probably not the most well-paying job, nor the most sought after.)

I tried to get Tess to take a selfie with me, but all she would do is duck face. How does she even know to do this? (Notice the haze around us. I forgot to wipe the humidity off of the lens first.)

"Tess, just give me one smile." "NO."

Our view. I asked Tess which train she liked more: the one here or the one at Disney World. She claimed this one, but I'm thinking that's because we were on it right then. Or because Grandma Susie kept taking Tess on the Disney train to get her to fall asleep.

One the train started she was happy as a clam! (The train goes like 15 mph, but even that small breeze felt good in that heat!)

It was a lovely - if slightly sticky - morning at the park with my best girl!

*********

This has nothing to do with the park, but I made this delicious trifle for dessert last night since we had two sets of missionaries over. Trifle is awesome because it looks spectacular but is super easy to make. Also, it is delicious. I was impressed with how much our family and the elders ate; there really wasn't too much left over at the end.

This trifle consisted of two 9x13 pans of brownies (although now that I think about it, I only used 1.5), 2 boxes of white chocolate pudding, most of a large container of Cool Whip, and lots and lots of raspberries from the garden. It was A LOT of dessert! (But healthy, right? Because raspberries.)