Avery Park, Corvallis:

We journeyed to the neighboring town to visit Avery Park . Avery is a 75-acre park on the Marys River which features a wonderful rose garden (with over 1200 plants), a beautiful rhododendron garden, a sweet 1922 mikado locomotive (rigged out to play on), unique playground equipment, trails to walk and bike, several covered picnic areas and ball fields, even a very large dinosaur bones sculpture! We had a wonderful family afternoon! Here are some of my favorite shots:

future hearthrob?

Those sensitive eyes and the "pouting" mouth, nearly a cupids bow; the silky soft hair, with its little "spike-y do"; the arches in those eyebrows, the strengthening chin. He's a mighty handsome three year old.

Yep, pretty soon the neighbors will be locking up their daughters.

things that make you go "awwwww":

Everyone likes to tease Indy.

Poor kid is going to have a complex, he he.

Anyways, Indy and Tooti have a running bit going in which Indy shouts "blow-y flower" and Tooti shouts "Dandy-Lion"! The two of them can go back and forth with this bit for AGES.

so. here he is blowing on whatever it is:

It really doesnt get a lot cuter than this.

keeping busy:

It's a good idea to keep your children busy; out of trouble! Make sure they have plenty of activities and learning games to keep them occupied. When that fails, make them wash the truck!Actually, our buddy Terry wanted to wash his truck before heading over to the thriving metropolis of Baker City,Oregon and he thought that Indy might want to give him a hand! We are having a bit of unseasonably warm weather, so we had a great time... Indy turned the house on Terry, so i enjoyed the visit.

today, Indy and his girlfriend played in the park on Indy's portable teeter totter... it appears that both of my sons have good looking girl-friends...

now if Duck would just share a picture of him with his girlfriend with me...

All in all... another nice walk through our little slice of the world.

There are wonderful flowers to see and smell on our walk to the lake; irises, daffodils, daisys, tulips, lots of flowers i cant identify, but my mother can...even some early roses!when we get to the lake there are critters to be fed! We enjoy feeding the geese... This time they acted like they hadn't been fed in a very long time! There were seven or eight geese all together when they accosted Indy, taking bread out of his hands and off the bench behind him, bumping and shoving him to get what they wanted. Finally they settled down into a more orderly group (including this little set of three in the photograph)...
When a six block walk includes: our green park, a beautiful blooming tree (or 5), more flowers than we can count, children on bicycles, a beautiful house that i would give anything to own (which is for sale but we just could never afford), teen aged girls sitting on porches talking on the phone, a nice pit stop at Grandpa and Grandma Leys' house, one house even has railroad ties for Indy to balance on as we walk along... and we end up at the lake where the path goes all the way around and we can feed the ducks, geese, sea-gulls, and various other birds. there are benches to be sat upon, and tables to eat at... there is a small dock for the paddle boats and the pre-k fishermen....

well...Albany isn't as bad a town as i make it out to be.

i go out walkin'

With the mild weather, and so much to see, we walk walk walk and walk again... maybe mommy can shed a few pounds. probably not.

So, one of this years mothers day gifts that i have already received is a new mp3 player (my dell gave up the ghost). Indy commandeered it for our walk today... he dances when he walks... it is way cuter on him than it would be on me.

There is so much to see and do. the vacant lot of last week is a construction site now... big back-hoes, track-hoes and rollers to be watched. there are ditch diggers around the corner as well! there are ducks to be fed, swings needing swung, dandy-lions to be blown, blossoms to be sniffed and slides to go down: no wonder i am exhausted!

spring finally sprung

the trees are blooming and we are getting "out and about" a lot more than we did in the winter!

so, hopefully, there will be lots of beauty to share in the coming months.