It's easier to love States when they behave

Is it Spring or Summer where you are?  Or winter?   I'm not sure what to call this here.  It's been warm, even HOT, for 3 whole days.  But the "hot" is... sneaky.  It LOOKS beautiful, and it FEELS really nice... and then after an hour in the sun, I'm all tired out.  Wha?  I'm used to knowing/feeling it's hot all day, and not being sapped out by it.  So that's new.

But-- I'm also not used to it getting very nice, very quickly  AS THE SUN GOES DOWN.  That's genius right there.

We have begun exploring parks a bit more, though quickly Kaden has favored two of them.  One (see above) is a HUUUUGE wooden castle outdoor playset.  Sure, there's swings and other stuff, but the main attraction is all this linked up wooden goodness.  Most of it is big enough for an adult to chase a kid-- except when a kid scampers across a wooden bridge and then just hangs out grinning at you.  Ahem.

We also made the best of one rainy day (sorry for a sideways pic) and I let the boy romp in the rain and resulting mud.  As a bonus I was able to get half of the patio garden set up (the other half needs to be completed SOON as the seeds are now sprouting! yay!).  Anyway, the rain was quite delightful- a long, gentle soaking with no thunder or lightning to scare us inside... and, surprisingly, hardly any humidity!  The humid days come, of course, but are nothing like what we're used to, so we're enjoying it.  I forgot how much I liked PA mud!

We were also able to take a road trip... and had some goofy fun with friends.  See above and below for photo proof.  This particular friend family also moved north, but to a neighboring state so it's a 6 hour drive.  All their relatives kept saying things like "whoo- six hours! that's a long drive, eh?" And we would look at them a little bit puzzled.  "Not really" we'd reply, "it's a lot closer than the 2 day drive to Florida".

hmmmm.

We ventured out to police museum... which was equally cool and disappointing.  I was glad Kade doesn't read yet, so I could skip all the displays about the 'bad guys'.  He was enamored with the motorcycle, of course, and more excited about the hands on 'crime lab' than the gun display.  Whew!  We had fun taking our fingerprints and using magnifying glasses, and yelling out "ALFRED!  GET OUR SUITS READY!"  Not much happens in our life that can't be related to Robin and Batman...

And, we visited a nice little farmers market.  The boy got a tattoo, a smoothie sample, a chance to plant *another* pumpkin seed... and a yoga class.  We watched from a distance- and I'm assuming the teacher must have mentioned warrior pose, because all of a sudden Kaden started doing his "ninja karate moves".   The teacher was patient, though, and rounded up the cats, er, boys and got them to try other poses too.  Win-win.  

Moral of the story?  PA is easier to love when it's warm out.  You all knew that, and I'm sure we did on some level too, but it's nice to be experiencing it (finally)!  Though I did push the envelope and try to go swimming today.  The pool is OPEN!  It's JUNE!  I'm sure it'll be fine!  Five minutes later, with blue lips and uncontrollable teeth chattering, we scrapped that plan.  In his best attempt to cheer me up, Jim said he was sure it would be warm... next month.  But the garden is growing and sprouting and the farmers markets are open, so I can wait for a swim :)