The Undeterred Attaway Girls

Today we went for a picnic. It was my idea, which usually results in drama and disappointment. Today the girls were pretty resilient, and we had a good time.

DeLaynie was most excited by the prospect of feeding the geese. The geese, however, were on the other side of the pond, and were’t hungry enough to grace us with their presence.

Edwin tried coaxing them over by chucking food at them...

The girls joined in, too,

but the bread didn’t make it too far when they threw it.


The geese were pretty far away, so even Daddy’s throws didn’t come close. (Yep, the geese are over there, on the other side of the pond.)

I was afraid that this would result in wailing and gnashing of teeth, but Ella turned her attention to more friendly wildlife. (Yes, that is a beaver, and no, I don’t know why there is a ride-on beaver at the pond.)

Both girls eventually decided to watch the geese from afar, armed with positive attitudes.

This is completely random, but Edwin took a picture of me and DeLaynie, and I wanted you to see me rocking the new shades. It’s taken a lot of self-coaching for me to get comfortable in the popular style of sunglasses, but I’ve finally done it! Stand in awe.

Both of our little drama queens were well-behaved and happy for the entirety of the picnic. This is the exception these days. Somehow they have discovered that they are, in fact, female, and are generally required to have some sort of melt-down during every family event. Maybe they’ve grown out of it?

When we got back home, we refilled the swimming pool. Excuse me, DeLaynie refilled the swimming the pool while I watched. Neither of them wanted to take the time to go inside and get changed into bathing suits, which was fine by me.

They also learned about the joys of the slip-n-slide. But they didn’t quite get the concept, I’m afraid.

DeLaynie carefully traversed the length of this outdoor amusement,

but to no avail. It inevitably resulted in a slip. (I tried explaining that this was the point, but she didn’t care for my pessimistic attitude.)

Still, she got right back up and went back to playing, though the absurdity of intentionally slipping lingered.

Ella enjoyed running between the Diego-themed slip-n-slide and the well-contained puddle we laughingly refer to as a pool. She didn’t always make it into the pool with grace.

“Hey! Grace is DeLaynie’s middle name. Not mine!”


It was a fun beginning to the weekend. May the rest of it follow suit!

Happy weekend, everyone!