Hope Returns
After a long, cold winter filled with slippery ice and sharp winds and endless, endless snow, after months of plaintive mewling from children wondering yet again why they couldn’t go outside, after countless lost mittens and frozen toes, after arctic treks to school each morning and pitch black darkness at five in the afternoon…
Spring has finally SPRUNG!
Which meant, of course, that a trip to Cheekwood was in order. We are so lucky that these gardens are just ten minutes away from our house. Filled with sculptures and fountains and quaint little garden houses and hidden paths and one very grand manor, Cheekwood has become a second backyard to my children, and I can’t think of a more extraordinary place for them to roam.
The kids first ran headlong to their favorite spot, a charming stone hut where we like to think Hansel and Gretel once outsmarted a mean old witch.
The witch, of course, is long gone, which means the house now belongs to Punky and Bruiser. I’m not sure Cheekwood’s staff knows this, but it’s true.
Once it was established that the house was still in good working order, we went exploring.
We found a new fountain, and Punky made a wish that it would be Spring “forever and always.”
We posed in fanciful oversized picture frames.
We fed a few hundred hungry goldfish with a pancake we’d secreted away during lunch at the Pfunky Griddle. And I marveled at how quickly my daughter is growing up. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind a bit if she stayed five-almost-six forever.
After a couple of hours of running and climbing and discovering and admiring, we decided it was time to head back home.
Bruiser disagreed.
He planted himself on a curb and loudly bemoaned the many injustices of life.
Only the offer of a lollipop stashed away from a recent trip to the bank could lure him away…
And the promise of many more Spring days to come.
