Trip to the Park (and other fun)

While we enjoyed our time in Warrenton, we have discovered a whole new world in Columbia for family fun.  We took Clay to Cosmo park about a month ago, and then went back a couple weeks later.  When we told Clay we were going back to the park, he asked, "We going to the NICE park?"  We had not described Cosmo as the "nice" park before - he came up with that completely on his own!

You can see a little of the park in the background - that's only a small portion of the huge park and playset area!  No wonder Clay calls it the "nice" park!

You can see that we like to let him try most activities on his own, and we just hope he doesn't hurt himself!  Clay is quite adventurous when it comes to climbing and playing - on the really dangerous equipment we will try to be "close" the first few attempts, and then we let him go at it!  He really wanted to try the monkey bars here, but he can only hang on a few seconds.  I am sure he will be swinging in no time, though!

Mom was on the other end of the seesaw - this was clearly a favorite of the day!

 And more park favorites...

We were nearing the end of the trip in this picture - he crawled into a tunnel and decided it was time to rest!  Silly guy!

Even with all the cool equipment, the biggest hit of the day was the tunnel and "mud" spot!  Clay spent quite a bit of time running in and out of the tunnel and kicking and playing in the dirt here.  Boys...  He has really developed a fondness with mud lately - we have a small patch of very thin grass in our backyard, and he frequently wants to take his shoes off to go dig and play in the "mud."  (It isn't really mud, I promise!  It's is only a small bare spot.)

I ran in the Glow Run 5K in Columbia a few weeks ago with my friends Susan Glass.  The race was a blast, and the pre-race goodie bag included some glow-in-the-dark glasses!  I decided to save them for Clay and we had a ton of fun in the bath!  He mainly enjoyed putting his face in the water and blowing bubbles through the glasses.  The glow is long gone, but we still have the glasses hanging in the bathtub!

Some random silliness - if you have ever seen Little Einsteins (or "Pat Pat"), you will understand this picture.   It is a TV show for young kids, and the plot always involves blasting off in a rocket.  Dan seems as happy as Clay for the impending Blast Off!

And finally, I love this picture of Clay with his friend, Eden Schoenfeld.  Eden's mom, Lindi, is one of my very best friends.  The two of them came to visit us in Columbia, and Clay was so excited to be allowed to sit with her!  He adored her and Lindi both!  I think he has been trying to get a message across lately - last week he got in the car to head home from the sitter and he said, "Mom, we need a baby brother."  We haven't talked about that much around him, although he likes to call Annie (our dog) his sister.  I followed up and asked why we need a baby brother, and his reply was quite simple: "So we can play with him."  Good enough, I guess!  We shall see...no news to share yet...