Day Two

Today Finny and I went hiking with the dogs at Turkey Creek. We took a backpack full of holiday ornaments and hung them in the trees here and there along the trail. Last year, during the winter, we saw some ornaments hung on this same trail. At the very end of the trail was a little altar covered with the most precious assortment of winter/Solstice/Christmas things. Little gnomes and Santas, acorns, pine cones and moss. Homemade snowmen and bits of tinsel. Just the most lovely thing. I wanted to do something like that for someone else this year and we had SUCH fun deciding where to hang each ornament so that it would be most appreciated.

Afterwards we were starving so we headed over to a restaurant in our hood called Fuegos. We'd never been there before, but had heard great things. I had WONDERFUL fish tacos. Turns out the owners are from Orange County, CA and have been in Austin just 3 years. The tacos had that great California feel to them. Mmmmm.

The coup de grace of the whole day was our venture over to the south side where we spent several hours (and quite a bit of money, gulp) at a CARNIVAL! Oh, I have such wonderful memories of being a child and going to fairs and carnivals. My parents were wonderful about taking us to these things. I think there was one every year at the Gateway Center. At least that's what I remember. Finny and I are SO much alike that it is just a joy to do these kinds of things with him. He and I both wanted cotton candy right away and then to walk around and scope it out before deciding what to do. We rode the caterpillar roller coaster, we did the Wacky Shack and some kind of crazy obstacle course bouncy house extravaganza thing about 30 times. Whew. He "fished" for a prize and won a coveted Batman dude. He also netted a rubber duck which got him a plastic whacking bat. We rode some crazy fire truck thing that goes high up in the air and then just sits there. He didn't want to ride any of the baby rides by himself. I asked him if he was scared or worried. He sighed, "Mom, I'm not SCARED of the baby rides. I just like to be with you all the time because we're fun." Oh my. We do have crazy fun and we are crazy in love.

I asked Finn if he wanted to drive home on the highway or through town - he chose town (my boy!). We were forced to stop and eat pizza on the drag. The had organic root beer in the bottle AND board games to play. Finn routed me at Candyland twice. I'm so grateful for the growth I've experienced with parenting. There was a time when I would have had judgemental apoplexy seeing a mother and small child in a pizza joint at 10:30pm getting root beers and pizza. Now I know that carnivals only come once a year, root beers get 1/2 drunk (at most), pizza makes a great nightcap and one should never turn down a game of Candyland.

Day Two was awesome. Finny is awesome. My life is awesome.

Y'all stop by and we'll play some Candyland.

Love,

Michele and Finnigan the Curious