Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Ballet Slipper Walk

What a day! Here's my second attempt at writing about it. Hopefully blogger doesn't eat this one.

We woke up bright and early and because I was feeling pretty strong I loaded the girls into their red wagon and we headed out for our first walk since arriving in Florida. I had a plan. Sadie needed ballet slippers for the dance class she's going to be in and Paul had a busy couple of days coming up, so I thought I'd help out by walking to the nearest shoe store and getting the shoes without him. The car has been rather unreliable, and so I've been avoiding driving it on my own.

The shopping area that the shoe store is in is one we've been to and if you'd asked me before we set off I would have said that it was about three miles away. I should have gotten driving directions however. Had I, I would have found that it was six miles each way and would have decided that walking that distance while pulling sixty pounds of baby in a red wagon didn't constitute "taking it easy."

It was a pretty eventful walk (and aside from the lake it was fun). We were chased by geese (okay, now that I've done a little research I've found they were ducks... this duck actually... who knew that ducks could be so aggressive?). We saw a huge turtle. And when Mae saw a snowy egret she said "bird!" She also said "map!" yesterday.

I thought about turning back around mile four. But I kept thinking that the next light was the light the shopping center was at, and once I'd gone so far it seemed like a shame to turn around when we were so close to our goal. If I'd known I was still miles away, however, I would have turned back.

We made it to the store and text messaged Paul to ask him to call us. Once he'd picked us up and measured the distance home he declared it was certainly not in the realm of "taking it easy."

After we got home we laid blankets out on the balcony and read fairy tales, and we went down and met the neighbors (there were about twenty kids playing down in the street near the house!) and the girls ran around. Mae did have a run in a with a little boy who wanted to hug her, and who chased her around trying to hug her until she ran into a sign and fell down in tears. However the tears were greater still when I tried to pick her up (she would much rather be running around!) and so she was back down until Paul came and got us.

And that was our day. I basically have two rooms left to unpack, but I'm taking the night off and having a date night watching a moving about Padre Pio with Paul.

Here's to tomorrow's attempt at "taking it easy." I have a feeling I'll be more successful than I was today!

1 comment:

  1. Those are the very ducks that lived behind my parents' house on the lake I was telling you about. They can be aggressive little devils when they are used to people feeding them. I used to act like I was going to kick them to get them to back off.

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