Sunny Days

Abby and I took advantage of a recent four-day stretch of sun. As I mentioned in my previous post, we went to the zoo on Saturday. On Sunday afternoon, we picked up pine cones and sticks in the yard so Kevin could mow the lawn. Abby worked on her outside walking skills and was soon going up and down the hill in our yard with virtually no problem at all.

Stopping to pick a dandelion.

Going down the hill with a pine cone in each hand.

On Monday, we headed out to Grayland to go to the beach and visit Kevin's parents. Abby and I had a very special time at the beach together. With baby boy arriving in less than a month, I'm becoming a bit sad that Abby's "only child" days are coming to a close. My daughter is so precious to me and I want to treasure this time with her always. So rather than do some reading that I'd brought along, I concentrated on Abby and simply enjoyed playing and exploring with her and watching her.

My little girl is all girl. She refused to sit directly on the sand and it took about an hour before she was even okay with her feet touching the sand. Additionally, she was concerned with the sand that would stick to her hands, so I told her she could wipe them on my pants which she did...about a hundred times. =) Her behavior cracked me up. One nice thing about it was that clean up was a cinch - just brush a little sand off the hands and feet when it was time to go and she was as good as new!

We walked down to the water...er, actually I carried Abby down to the water because she wouldn't walk in the sand...and put our toes in the little pools of water left by the waves.

Abby didn't really like it at first (surprise, surprise), but soon was giggling with glee as I taught her to splash her feet in the puddles. On our way back to our blanket (once again me carrying her - as you can imagine my back was killing me by the end of the day!), we found some shells to pick up. Abby was fascinated with them and didn't touch her toys again the rest of our time at the beach in favor of examining and rearranging her treasures instead. The shells were also the key to finally getting Abby to walk on the sand and soon we were hand-in-hand scavenging the dunes for more shells and pretty rocks.

We then packed up and drove the mile back to Kevin's parents house. We walked out to the cranberry bog to check on Daddy's status. Kevin has been helping his dad put in a new sprinkler system on one of the bogs.

Kevin gave us a ride back to the house on the 4-wheeler, much to Abby's delight.

Soon after, Kevin's mom arrived home from work and we went with her over to Kevin's grandma's (she's still in the hospital) to feed her chickens and cats. There are at least a dozen stray cats that Grandma Ethel has adopted, but they are still pretty wild. Abby squealed in happiness when she saw all the "bubbas" and they immediately scattered. Slowly, they would creep out, but as soon as Abby noticed she would make a move toward the porch and squeal, and they of course would scatter again. She became frustrated that she couldn't get close to any of them. After finally giving up on the cats, Abby headed after the chickens but, as you can see in the picture below, they ran from her too. Apparently, cute little girls can be very scary.

On Tuesday, Abby spent some time at my mom's while I got some housework and homework done. They played outside most of the time and Abby discovered Grandma's swing set for the first time. It is old, rusty, and falling apart in places (I think my parents got it shortly after they moved here over 30 years ago!!), but is still lots of fun for the little ones as Abby quickly found out.

We are sad that the warm, sunny weather is gone, but we look forward to the next time it returns. In some ways, it's as if this is Abby's first spring and summer since she didn't learn to walk until late last fall after the weather had turned cold and rainy. It is so much fun to see her explore new things everyday and take in everything around her!