Spring is here!

Thank goodness that the warm spring air has finally arrived.  Lets hope it stays this way...this winter was far too long and we're all ready for the sunshine.  This weekend we went to out favorite local park - Brookside Gardens and Wheaton Regional Park hoping to see some spring flowers in bloom and explore the park's huge playground.  We realized when we got there that Austin hasn't ever really had much time playing in the grass - last summer he was confined to a blanket and this year its been pretty chilly out until now.  At first he wasn't quite sure about the texture and the dirt, but after a few minutes he took off exploring and crawling around!

The flowers at Brookside weren't really in bloom yet.  Its funny because this time last year the cherry blossoms had peaked and the tulips were all gorgeous.  This year the tulips were still just starting to pop up:

So, we spent most of our time at the playground side of the park.  First stop, the carousel.  First, we watched to see if he had any interest.  He watched it fairly intently and pointed at it (pointing is pretty much his new thing.  He points at everything and grunts as if to say 'take me to see that thing over there.')

We weren't sure what he'd think if he was actually on the carousel, but turns out he loved it.  Lots and lots of smiles as the horse went up and down:

After our ride, the carousel shut down for 1/2 hour or so.  We went to play in the grass, and Austin crawled right back to it.  I think we'll get alot of rides in this summer!

Afterwards we headed up towards the playground equipment.  The swings were all taken, which is pretty much the only thing we've ever done at the park.  Turns out that there's alot more fun stuff on the playground that Austin can do!  He went down the slide (although we didn't take pictures so this picture is actually from the day before at a different playground):

He attempted to climb a rock wall (with lots of daddy's help):

His favorite by far though was the little animals that you sit on and rock.  They seem a bit boring looking, and I almost didn't put him on one!  He had a blast rocking back and forth on the froggy:

The park definitely tired him out, and it was time for a nice long afternoon nap.  We decided that a car ride would put him to sleep and get us to another spring time destination -- Annapolis.  When the weather is this good, its hard not to drive out to the bay and get that vacation-like feeling.  Austin got a nice long nap, and woke up happily as we pulled in to Cantler's Riverside Inn.  Man, we love this place.  We had crabcake and haddock sandwiches on the crab deck overlooking the river.  Austin really chowed down on the sweet potato fries!

Afterwards we went downstairs to visit the live crabs on the dock.  I don't think Austin knew quite what he was looking at, but thats okay....we always find it fun to see the crabs!!

The spring and summer weekends are going to be so much fun this year now that Austin is much more able to be out and about.  The warm weather also got us thinking that we can finally go biking again.  I really didn't bike after I found out I was pregnant, and last summer Austin was so little that I think I've only ridden my bike 2 or 3 times in the past 2 years.  Of course, starting to bike again means that we needed a new toy.  We shopped around a bit and ordered the Burley Elite bike trailer off of Amazon on Saturday so that we can tow Austin around with us.  To our surprise, it showed up on our doorstep yesterday (fast shipping!) so we put it together and took it for a spin last night!

Happily, Austin's outdoor playtime is continuing throughout the week while at daycare.  Pratima has an amazing back yard, and yesterday Austin had a blast.  I think its going to be hard to take him away from all of the play equipment!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that we helped Mike's cousin Andy celebrate his 40th birthday this weekend.  It was beautiful weather for a backyard BBQ.  Austin finally was old enough to play with the dogs a bit, and really had a great time chasing them and petting them!