Sunday, May 20, 2012

Picnic at the new park

19.4 Go on 10 "adventures" 
36.43 Try 50 new recipes

Our adventures are things that either we'd like to do with J or things that J has requested. Well, last week, J kept asking we could have an adventure. I asked her what kind of adventure she was thinking of and she told me she wanted to go on a picnic at the new park and take Daddy so he could play at the new park.

The new park is actually the playground beside the water park at Granville Island. We actually had J's birthday party there last summer. Once the water park closed for the season, construction fences went up around the old adventure playground and down it came. It has been replaced with a much better playground - definitely better suited the various age groups that use the park. It has one of those cool rubber floors (is that what you'd call it? surfaces?) that reduce injuries and kind of bounce when you walk on it. It's got some great playground equipment including the merry-go-round with the ropes below and it even has a kid operated water feature.

We staked out our picnic spot, in the shade, on the big field, but just off the path to the playground. J rode her bike and insisted on keeping her helmet on for most of the time we were there.

juicer

Three or four families of geese roamed the grassy field beside us. J loved watching them - from a distance of course. We explained to her how the parents would protect their babies and that she needed to stay far away from them so that they knew she wasn't going to touch their babies.

geese

J went grocery shopping with me on Friday night and she got to pick all of the food for the picnic - she is currently in love with croissant sandwiches, so those were on the menu along with veggies and dip, oranges, strawberries and of course, a picnic wouldn't be complete without a special treat. J helped make Emeril's Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were good, but I think the next time I'd cut the sugar in half and use powdered sugar instead of granulated and brown...maybe it's because I buy natural peanut butter, but the sugars gave the cookies a really granular texture. They still tasted excellent though!

picnic treat

After lunch J and Alex played in the park for ages - this is the new fangled merry-go-round with it's cage of ropes to keep the kids from falling out...although it doesn't stop them from climbing the outside and spinning around....

hanging out

We left not long after this - the family beside us started feeding the geese and the mother (I think that's the female) was not impressed (if you click the picture, you can see she's hissing at the people) and the geese got closer and closer to our blanket and then kids started TOUCHING them.

close geese

Do not anger the mother goose! We decided before the hissing turned to lunging and wing flapping we'd leave...our not-too-subtle preschooler loudly exclaiming the entire way, "They shouldn't be touching those birds. Birds don't like it when you touch their babies. Geese will get mad and hurt you if you get too close. Birds don't like people food, it hurts their tummies."

Oh, adventures with J!

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