A Picnic and a Goose Attack

Do you know what the beauty of living in the South is?  70 degree weather in the dead of winter.  The weather has been absolutely gorgeous the last few days and we have taken full advantage here.  David was off work for Martin Luther King day, so while he was doing some fix-it stuff around the house, we pulled Hadley's little tikes slide outside on the grass for her to play on.  This girl had a ball!  We were all covered in dead grass before all was said and done and Daddy sprayed us off with the leaf blower!


Playing outside on our slide!

Yesterday, I met my friend Erin (Yep! Same name!) and her sweet baby girl at Furman for a picnic and a walk around the lake.  We sat on the ground around the amphitheater and had our packed lunches, while Hadley ate some of hers and fed the majority of it to Cheyenne--the dog.  Bless her sweet heart, she seems to think that every animal is going to starve because she always feeds Marley, too.  And in her defense, Marley probably looks pretty malnourished compared to all the other dogs she's met in her short 15 months of life.  (15 months! What?!  Where did all of that time go...)


I can't get over this beauty.

After lunch, we loaded the girls up in the strollers and walked around the lake and just talked (and walked) our butts off.  It was so. much. fun.  I hardly ever get adult conversation anymore so that mixed with sunshine and exercise--it was a good day.


Walking around the Bell Tower


The Bell Tower at Furman University

Little Maddie needed a snack break so we stopped at the bell tower on campus while she ate.  Hadley enjoyed the time getting to run around and quack at all the ducks.  This was her first time seeing a duck "in real life."  She's seen them in books, but of course they are much more fascinating in 3-d.  And of course she thought they were all starving, so she kept feeding them her gerber puffs from her snack cup.  They were eating it up!  Literally.  There had to be at least 40 ducks, geese, and swans surrounding us.  Fortunately, they were in the water and we were up a little higher on solid ground.


Eating a snack while the ducks congregate in the water.

Out of no where, this huge black swan came swimming up and you could tell he was a bully.  All the other ducks backed up and he gobbled up all the snacks.  And he was really close.  Really close.  And he had that evil look in his eye like he would try just about anything to get those snacks.  I was a little wary of him and kept an eye on Hadley.  I had my camera and wanted to snap a shot of my girl sitting down, so I walked a little ways towards the water and turned my back for a split second.  Before I knew it, I heard a lot of squawking behind me, Hadley is SCREAMING bloody murder, which made me scream--which interrupted Maddie's meal and made her cry, which made the squawking continue in the water.  It was such a hysterical mess!


Evil black swan.

I knew that swan was bad news and I was right.  As soon as I turned my back on it, that thing jumped out of the water!  I think Hadley screaming scared him, though, and he hopped back in pretty quickly.  And we put the snacks away after that. ;)


My beautiful friend Erin and Maddie!

Unfortunately our warm weather will end soon-- I think I heard they might be calling for snow this weekend-- but I am grateful for the chance to get outside without a chill and for good friends to do life with!