Oh, fresh air. We missed you.

Seriously?  We went to the park for a little over two hours today and it WRECKED us.  It was sunny after 1 pm for the first time since last fall.  And it was over 45 degrees.  And Ella woke up early which means she napped early which means she was awake by 1:30 pm which means we'd have enough time to spend at the park before it gets dark at 4 pm.  See, there are a lot of factors that have to happen just so in order for us to hit the park on a weekday.  If Ella sleeps in past 8:00, she doesn't go down for a nap until after lunch.  And that lands us at home base until she wakes up.  If she gets the early nap and goes down for the count at 11 am or earlier, we have all afternoon.  But, it's Seattle.  And if the sun comes out in the AM, you can be sure it'll be gone and overcast with scattered showers in the PM.  We can never get all factors to line up- PM sun, Ella's early nap, no other prior engagements, temps above frozen fingers- in the winter.  Until today.  And HoLy CoW did it wreck us. 

We drove to the Pirate Park (not it's actual name but the name given by Breckin therefore it shall always be called that) around 1:45.  Lightweight coats cause we almost got sunburnt walking home from the bus.  Yeah, we're pasty like that.  Breckin pushed his cheetah button on his jacket and ran full speed to the swings.  You'd have to know him to know that 1) I'm not kidding about that and b) The buttons change daily. 

We did some of this

And a little of this

And Breckin taught Ella how to slide like this

And Ella wore her sassy pants like this

And said very grown up things like No No and Rawr and Bye Bye.  And the most important thing?  She left her shoes and socks on!!!  For the first time in her life, she didn't rip her shoes and/or socks off the minute she could reach her feet.  Yay Ella! 

You'll just have to check the photos tab to see the rest otherwise this blog could go on forever.  We played pooh sticks.  Google it.  We danced on a tree stump.  We made a very small tree fort and all fit inside.  We chased birds.  We swang and swung and swinged.  For an hour and fifteen minutes we swinged.  We went down slides and up slides and fell in the wet woodchips and ate them.  We froze our fingers and necks cause it turns out the park which is in the woody area is shaded and therefore not sunburn status like our front porch and our lightweight jackets and no gloves was a bad idea but we didn't care for two hours cause we were breathing fresh air DAMMIT.

And now?  Now we are wrecked.  Ella was out like a trout by 7:30 and I fell asleep with her in the rocker while she was chowing on her milk.  Breckin is a disaster.  He was SOOO good at the park and left nicely and used great words and was nice to all the kids and now his daddy is getting the brunt of that.  He fell apart when his sister took his green plastic sunglasses out of his drawer.  He crumpled on the floor when he found out it was hair wash night.  He had a slight meltdown when his bandaid fell off and he discovered wrinkly bandaid skin on his finger and it felt different and he doesn't like different.  He is wrecked with a capital WRECK.  But DAMMIT we got fresh air.  And it felt SO NICE.