This Morning

This morning Andrew and David headed out to our church for the monthly men's breakfast. I'd talk about that, but I don't know a whole lot other than there was one other little boy (this one about 12 months old) and that Davey really enjoyed it (in fact, he wants to go again).

Meanwhile, Elisabeth and I headed out for our own adventures. We took my dad's truck so Elisabeth was able to ride up front (the air bags are deactivated when there's less than 100 pounds on the passenger seats.) Can you see how excited she was to be out with me?

After some discussion we decided to head to Derby Reach. I should interrupt myself here to say how much I love doing anything with Elisabeth. She talks absolutely non-stop, but it's so funny to listen to! I don't think I would ever tire of it. I wish I could tape it so you could hear it too. It's like a combination commentary on what she sees out the window (or from the stroller, or as she's walking) and stream of consciousness with some singing plumped in the middle. Quite hilarious.

Well, I decided to take 200th Street north (rather than our usual 208th) and I was kind of glad we did. As we got close to 96th, we could see the new Golden Ears Bridge in the distance. See?

I guess I have more of my dad in me than I like to admit, so of course we headed straight into the construction zone to see if we could get a good picture of the bridge (since it was such a beautiful day and all...)

It was a bit disconcerting because as I said, they were in full construction mode. And I didn't realise until it was too late that we had driven on to a one way road (luckily we were going the correct way hah hah hah). I had hoped to pull of the road and grab a couple of shots, but as we were right in the path of the overpass and feeders, we couldn't get a good angle. After some false starts though, we found a nice spot to get this picture:

And this one:

That part of the bridge is absolutely lovely.

Once we'd gotten those shots, we started trying to find our way out and back onto the main roads. But I had no idea how to find the one way road that led away from the construction and every road we drove onto ended in some remote part of the industrial zone or at a railway track or something like that.

That did mean that I got some decent shots of the bridge though. Isn't this crazy?

It was like a bridge from California or somewhere. So many loops and long off ramps and on ramps and who knows what. I hope that once the bridge opens they do a tour so I can figure out how to use it!!

Anyway, we eventually found our way back out and headed to Derby Reach.

We were SO happy that the threatened/promised snow didn't materialize. It was absolutely gorgeous, though frigid!

We tried going down to the water, but it was tooooooo cold. So we decided to run around the field a bit to warm up instead.

Then Elisabeth wanted to play hide and seek for a while too. Only we both had to hide so it was sort of difficult.

There was a thick frost covering everything. It was all starting to melt as we got there, and here you can see a drip falling from this roof as the sun melted it off the picnic area.


I was quite fascinated with this tree. And especially with how the silver part ends just at the end of my reach and this knobbly bark is underneath.

Elisabeth was fascinated with it too. She collected broken branches and sticks and used them to "colour" the bark. This occupied her for a good half hour.

See how deep in concentration she was?

Pausing only to select a different stick to colour with.

Or to give the tree a quick succession of hugs and kisses (she did this at least three times - SO cute!)

I got a bit bored so I took pictures of the sun. Like I said, it was such a beautiful day today.

I can't possibly be inside on a day like this. No matter how cold it is!

A stick I liked the look of.



Elisabeth playing peek-a-boo this time.


And finally it was time to leave. Of course we brought our sticks home with us.