Picnic at Old Mill

Ah, springtime.  Is there anything better than the warming weather, chirping birds, blooming flowers, and unfurling leaves that come with the change of season?  I think not.

To commemorate the truly gorgeous day we had, Jo and I decided that it was picnic time.  Actually, to be accurate, we decided that it was "sit in the park and read while nibbling fruit salad" time.  But you know what I mean.

First we walked a few blocks to grab a newspaper, because my baby loves to sit in a park and read the newspaper.  He really will make an amazing old man.  He already sits in parks reading newspapers, listens to NPR while driving, has creaky joints (at least a creaky knee), and carries around a little notebook so that he won't forget things.  Babe, I love you.  But you know it's true:-)

The fruit salad was yummy:

And the day was pretty darn perfect:

 

I recently bought a big floppy sun hat, which I'm pretty much obsessed with.  Jo was nice enough to model it for me.  He actually looks better in it than I do, damn him.

 

We could have stayed all day, but I had studying to do, since Finals Week (yes that does) warrant capital letters!) was coming up.  After Jo finished catching up on current events, we strolled on back home.

But not before taking some pretty pics of some springtime blooms though!

 

Our Basil Babys

Every year, I grow basil on our kitchen windowsill and then eventually move it outside where it can grow big and strong and produce some of the finest pesto this side of the Mississippi. 

At least, that's the theory.

In reality, I've failed to produce healthy basil for the past two years now.  The seeds start off great and grow up to be about three inches.  But then they just...stop growing.  It happens about the time when I move them outside, and I can't figure out what the problem is.  Instead of dwelling on this year's basil fail, let's just remember the basil as the young, vibrant, promising plants that they once were. 

Oh well.  I'll try again next year.

Easter Bunny Gargamerle

As promised, here is our sweet gargoyle, all ready for Easter.

If you didn't know better, wouldn't you think he was just another fluffy Easter bunny, ready to hop around and distribute sweet treats to all the girls and boys?

Impromptu photo shoot

While Jo and I were doing some spring cleaning, we found an old project of mine that I had abandoned due to technical difficulties.  The Christmas before last Jo had made me the most amazing, spectacular, creative, thoughtful, awesome, colorful...(etc, etc) gift ever.  He had gone around to various places that had some sort of significance for the two of us and he took pictures of one letter from each place.  The letters ended up spelling the sweetest message ever (which you'll see in just a bit.)  Anyway, I had tried mounting the pictures on a black background so I could hang them up, but it didn't end up working out because the black board kept bending out.  Even though the project didn't end up working out, I can't bear to part with it because of how happy the words make me every time I look at them.  Since they weren't doing anything useful, we decided to have an impromptu photo shoot on our front steps.  Check it out:

Heil Ranch

Jo and I have had picnics on the mind lately.  We decided to head over to a place called Heil Ranch, which is a popular destination for hikers and mountain bikers, to get our picnic on as well as do some hiking.

Jo was going to go straight from Heil Ranch to playing soccer with a group of guys he plays with every week, so he wore his soccer shoes to hike in.  Before we left, I kindly pointed out his mismatched socks.  Jo doesn't believe in pairing socks, so he keeps all of his socks jumbled together in one white sock pile.  This wasn't a problem when he had socks that were all one length.  Ankle socks with crew cut socks, however, well that's a different story:-)

The drive to Heil Ranch took about 35 minutes.  On the way, we saw this moo cow.  Jo and I have a hard time just passing cows when they are this close to us.  We always end up stopping so we can look at the cows and talk to them.  Don't ask me why.  We just like it, okay?

Heil Ranch was hoppin' when we got there; tons of people had come out to enjoy the awesome weather and either hike or mountain bike.  Jo and I were going to hike later, but first we had some chowing down to attend to:

Changing socks?  Check

Talking to a random cow on the side of the road? Check

Munching on some awesome eats? Check

Now it was time to hike:

A fork in the road.  Hmmm...which to take?  We ended up going right.  We were on the 1.5 mile Lichen Loop trail.  We didn't have time to do anything longer because Jo had a soccer game to get to after we were done at Heil.

Cheesy senior yearbook photo time!

Here's Jo, looking much more normal and much less posed.

Couple shot.  I was rockin' my favorite hat.

Lichen on rocks, something that we both have a strange attraction to.

My man.

This deer was making the wierdest noise I've ever heard a deer make.  Actually, come to think of it, I've never heard a deer make a noise at all before.

A busy bee.

We found this old lime kiln and stopped to take a look.

This lime kiln dated back to the late 1800s.  Lime was mined from the surrounding hillsides and was a common ingredient in mortar and cement and was also used to whitewash houses.

It was still brown, for the most part.  This spiny cactus hadn't quite gotten to experience the hot weather it thrives in.

We did the loop in no time.  Since we had some time to kill, we decided to take some more cheesy senior photos.  Jo is a little too good at these, if you ask me.

Cheeseball.

Ridiculous.

We hit the road soon after the last round of cheesy yearbook photos.  On the way, we saw this flock of wild turkeys doin' their thang.

We had passed this little rundown shack on the way to Heil, and I wanted to stop and take some pics.

And then, there were more turkeys.  Since we had eaten Tofurky for lunch, we couldn't resist pulling over to capture the irony of the situation on camera.  Observe: