Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Big Fun in the Great Outdoors

We went to the LA Arboretum today for running and photos. It was a wonderful trip and we only covered about 25% of the grounds and didn't really stop and enjoy quite a bit. As I go through the photos I took there, I find myself wanting to go back. I probably should have sprung for the membership.


We were greeted by a peacock in the parking lot. We followed him inside and found him by an empty fountain. I explained to the girls how we knew it was a boy and just as we were about to move on he decided to show us his fine display. The girls were very excited to see him so close and he turned around a couple times so we got to see how impressive he looked from all angles.

We walked around some more and wandered through different gardens with the idea to head towards the waterfall. We took a very roundabout way, but ran into quite a few geese, some ducks and more peacocks. The day couldn't have been better. There was a very slight breeze so we didn't get too hot, but the sun was out enough that all of the girls had some color in their cheeks. I'm sure some of the color was from running, too.


Batya really blossoms when she is outdoors. She was taking off around trees, climbing on rocks and stumps and posing for pictures. While her sisters are getting a little tired of the camera in their face all of the time, Batya definitely enjoys it if she can be the art director.



We finally made it to the waterfall and the Shira immediately crawled to a rock and sat to stare. She probably would have sat like that for quite a while, but Chaya decided she had to sit next to her which means their feet touched and battle ensued. When does this magical multiples are BFF happen?



When we headed back to the car we ran into some geese. Shira was very scared of them and Chaya was leery but Batya took the role of defender and got into a heavy stare-down with a particularly bold bird.


Then we ran into our friend from parking lot and two friends. Chaya was decidedly less scared of them.


And did anyone notice that I didn't dress the girls in coordinating outfits? In fact, I didn't dress them at all. They all picked out their clothing with only a couple of shoe vetoes from me.