In Which We Have A Lovely Day

Today was a lovely, sunny day-- something that's been relatively scarce around here for the last week or two.  I know that summers here are usually pretty short, but six weeks is a little ridiculous even for this area.  At any rate, with it so nice outside we just couldn't stay indoors, so we headed out to soak up some sun. 

Connor and I took a nice long walk around the neighborhood.  All of the neighbors seemed to be out and about too-- mostly walking their dogs or catching up on yard work.  We made a slow circuit around the block, stopping to chat every few houses with the neighbors we know.  Every once in a while a large cloud of children would speed past us on their bicycles, which Connor thought was enormously funny.  He got particularly excited when a kid of about ten or eleven slowed down and rang the bell for him-- he even turned his bike back around and rode past us a second and third time so Connor could hear it again.  It was really cute, and we're lucky to live in a place with such great people!

I was a little disappointed that I didn't see one particular group of folks out when Connor and I took our walk, though.  I'd run some errands earlier that morning without the little guy along and was driving down our street on the way back to our house when I passed three men out in a driveway.  Surrounding the driveway was a small clump of children.  I slowed down because I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

The men were probably in their thirties, and they were dressed in full karate gear.  Two of the men wore black belts and one wore a red belt.  The three of them were doing nonstop back flips and jump kicks, stopping only to spar with each other before launching themselves into the air again.  All the kids were cheering. 

I am totally not making this up.  Seriously, do we live in the coolest neighborhood ever, or what? 

So after checking to see that our martial arts neighbors were (sadly) not out in their yard anymore, we stopped by the playground across the street from our house, where Connor enjoyed playing on the slide and the bouncing duck.  You know what I'm talking about-- it's a duck, and on a big spring, and you ride on it and it bounces.  What the heck do you call those things anyway?  And why, for that matter, is it a duck?  Wouldn't it make more sense for it to be a frog or something?

So while we played on the bouncing duck (or whatever that thing is called) I also kept an eye out for the owl; the park has the playground carved out of it and otherwise is several acres of woodland, so it's likely that he's got a nest somewhere in there.  That would explain why he was so close to our house.  We didn't catch sight of him though; he must be holed up somewhere sleeping, like owls are supposed to do in the daytime.  The only wildlife we saw out and about was this squirrel, who thought we looked suspicious and watched us from a perch in the trees the entire time we were there.

Anyway, after that we headed back home, and Connor spent some time indoors with his daddy while I finished out the afternoon by weeding the garden. 

So all in all it was a lovely day!

~Jess