The Perfect Weekend

This past weekend turned out to be the perfect family weekend, especially Saturday when we dared to take everyone along (including Mariposa) to enjoy the perfect sunny, 75 degrees spring day.

The night before Andy and I actually pondered where we could go so that on Saturday we could just jump out of bed and get going, instead of twirling our hair and coming up with last minute suggestions.

We went to a huge park, Quiet Waters Park near Annapolis. The park was beautiful. Miles of trails and meadows, etc., and most importantly a trail along the coast, which included a dog beach.

Our plan was to go to the beach and be near the water, so a dog beach was a perfect solution as it meant that Mariposa could come along as well. It turned out that most of the dog beach was eroded during the winter weather, but that still didn't stop dogs and dog owners from crowding the narrow beach edges that were still there (until two park rangers came along and booted everyone off the sand).

I baby-bjorned Allen along, while Ivan, Mariposa and Andy ran and raced in front of us on the trails. Ivan did fall down and seriously scuffed his knees and ended up with a huge bruise when he fell down on the trail, but nothing serious. Falls and bruises happen. He actually needed a flaster for a real bubu.

Mariposa had a great time on the dog beach, with other dogs, including another female basset hound, and barking. Once she started barking, everyone got a kick out of it, as everyone is always startled to hear how deep and loud her bark is.

We then went to a dog park as well. The dog park was divided into a big and little dog area. We visited both. Mariposa preferred the little dog area. The big dog area freaked her out a bit and she stood by Andy's side (although this was nothing compared to that time we took her to Wheaton dog park, where she was absolutely scared.)

It was a successful park outing where everyone behaved, we went to get lunch. The idea was to go to Annapolis and sit outside. Our lucky stars must have been shining on us because as we exited the park, we basically stumbled on these signs for a waterfront restaurant. We followed the signed into this chi-chi condo development built around a marina. And there was the restaurant, at the marina. It was about 2:30, and the place was quite empty, which was good because as I looked at us I realized that we must have been a restaurant's worst nightmare of a patron: a young family with a three year and three month old and a dog.

We sat outside, near the water and the boats and ordered food. Everyone still behaved. Allen, who slept in the park in the babybjorn, woke up and was quietly looking around, Ivan behaved and ate his pizza, and Mariposa quietly laid under Andy's chair. Everything was perfect, until the very end when Allen started fussing because he was hungry, Ivan got fidgety from sitting down and Mariposa wanted to sniff things. Still we managed to leave on a relatively high note.

On Sunday, we went to Seger and Mateo's birthday party at Candy Cane playground. The party featured The Great Zucchini, the area's most renowned kids performer. I was really excited to see him perform (because of the WP profile a few years back). I expected to see a theatrical guy dressed in flamboyant clothing, but the Zucchini was basically a middle-aged frat guy, wearing a white T-shirt and non-descript shorts. But he had the three year-old crowd laughing in no time. He totally mastered the speech patterns and thoughts preoccupations of three year-olds. Hey guys, watch this....." he'd say, which is exactly what Ivan says all the time. (Andy thought he was lame, but then Andy is not his audience.)

In the afternoon, Andy took Ivan to his first soccer practice. Since it was an Andy/Ivan activity, they didn't want me along. So instead, I had friends over. Mariposa spent the afternoon on the porch, barking at things.