Silly in the Car

Feather Collection

I thought this looked so funny. Parker was really excited about collecting different types of feathers that he found while we were camping--he insisted on always having at least one feather in his hand at all times. I downloaded some cartoons to my ipod for him to watch during his antsiest times in the car, and while on our drive home I turned around to see him so carefully clutching a feather in each hand while delicately balancing the cartoon-playing ipod on his knee. Now that's multitasking!

Crazy Driver Alert!

We took Parker to Legoland for the first time in January; they have some "cars" that kids can drive around a track themselves--they have to actually push a gas pedal to go and steer with the steering wheel, the cars aren't on a track or anything. The minimum age for drivers is 3 years old, but he was so close to his third birthday that I figured we could fudge it a little bit! Unfortunately, he's never had the chance to "drive" a toy motorized car that some kids have, and he was still yet to grasp the concept of steering his bike or tricycle. So, you'll see that he needed some serious extra help driving his car! In fact, I kind of suspect that the employees stopped the ride early because they were getting tired of having to help him. But I was SO proud of him for even trying to drive one of the cars by himself--he is often pretty reluctant to try out new, strange things, especially by himself, so it was a really big deal that he did this! Parker is wearing a beige shirt, and is in the blue car in the very front as they start.

Rainy Day Road Trip

Another wonderful rainy day today...we decided that we'd rather sit in the car in the rain than sit in the house in the rain, so we went out exploring. We drove southeast to a dirt and gravel road in the hills near the border (which we found listed in an off-road driving guide Jared has). It was a pretty drive down there once we got off the main freeway and wound through the Jamul area--the rain brought out lots of lovely fall colors. The off-road part of the drive was easy--we wanted to make sure we chose an easy trail since it was raining steadily for most of the day, and we wanted to stay safe. We drove up into the hills and along a ridge for about two hours until we came out the other side right near the Otay Mesa border crossing--we had views right into Mexico from high up on the hill. Halfway through the drive along the dirt road, we passed a Ranger in his truck--he told us we "couldn't have picked a worse day" to be exploring this particular trail, as it was so fogged in that there were no pretty views to enjoy! But we still had a fun adventure bouncing around and splashing through big puddles--those were Parker's favorite parts :)