Return of the Cruise Directors

We are back to adventuring, which is one of my favorite things about moving to a new place (another one of my favorites is that other moms haven't caught on yet that my children will pillage anyone else's snack food that is brought to the playground or the beach or for a walk. Admittedly, I am one of those epically under-prepared moms who rarely remembers to bring all the right gear anywhere I go, but I do,  usually, bring some sort of food for my little ones because they are hounds and shameless beggars. Whatever I bring, though, never stacks up to whatever someone else brings. Thank you for all the feeding of my children that you did, Tricia and Jessie. You guys may be bankrupt now but my kids are fully fed. And I digress again...).

I think we've decided that the getting to wherever we are going is half the fun -- or at least that's the bill of goods we're trying to sell Molly and Jack. After fun and very-patient-with-her-mini-stalker Auntie Holly left this weekend (after a very enjoyable Saturday of sledding with the cousins and getting Katy and Emmy up on Molly's skis... which went over much better than when John dropped Molly because she clocked him in the knee cap with the skis), we took the ferry over to Bainbridge Island and wandered around, played at the playground, and scouted the beach for the best rocks out there to throw in the water. We found a snail with no shell that Molly very, very thoughtfully used her newly acquired "science finger" to gently touch (the nice staff at the aquarium taught Molly all about using her pointer finger to gently touch the sea creatures. The no manhandling rule went over much better from them than it would have from me) and just generally wandered around the beach. I could do that all day, every day. I love the beach during the shoulder seasons (or approaching the shoulder seasons). It's quiet, usually peaceful, and there's just lots of interesting things to discover. 

It's good to be back out doing new and fun stuff and to get to be tourists in our own backyard. I just hope the small ones are ready to experience whatever random event we cook up because really, that's our specialty and probably the type of trip planning we're best at. 

Note: I am really that unprepared... while it was a very mild day on Monday, I managed to bring two hats for Jack and none for Molly. Thankfully, Jack's giant head came to the rescue again since his hat fit her just fine. See, it all works out.