And It's Still January...

Just a quick note about a pretty wonderful day. The kids had the day off, so we had a lazy day, sleeping in and taking our time this morning. Then Summer and Allyson went grocery shopping while Evan napped, the boys played outside, and I got some work done. The real fun began after lunch.

After a quick trip to the library, we drove down Central to Tingley, where we parked and walked around the bosque park there. The park, renovated in 2006 for the city’s tricentennial, includes a number of picnic tables and a maze of paths running both parallel to and toward the river. We walked for 10 minutes or so, down to the river’s edge, where we could see a dozen or so geese on a sandbar in the middle of the river. I’m always amazed at how getting into the bosque, where rabbits, coyotes, and roadrunners live, makes you feel so distant from the city, even though you’re only a few minutes from downtown. If it wasn’t for the traffic noise from Central, we wouldn’t even have known we were in the city.

After this pleasant trip, we made our way up to our favorite ice cream place, I Scream Ice Cream. This small independent shop, run by the friendliest man I’ve ever met, is decorated in classic album covers and old-school toys. And the ice cream is spectacular.

But the best part, after we had eaten our fill and stopped by the bakery next door for some homemade bread, was the time and temperature sign at the shopping center where we were: at 3:45 pm on 16 January it read 62 degrees. Sure beats shoveling snow…