What a day

By K.J. Cardinal

Anna had quite a day today to say the least.

She woke up and I took her outside on the hammock to listen and see all the birds. It was a beautiful morning, but she was being a little snuggle bug in her blanket and loving life so much.

After breakfast, we decided that we wanted to take a family picnic, so we headed to the Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary in Princeton. It's part of the Mass Audubon Society, so admission was included with our yearly membership.

Anyway, the sanctuary was pretty cool. We hiked up to this otter pond and had a nice picnic there. We had the entire place to ourselves. We literally didn't see another soul on the trails all day, which was so great.

The highlight of the day for me came when we were hiking back after lunch. Anna was on my back in her MacPac and a red-tailed hawk flew about five feet from us through the woods. I saw him coming through the trees, so I wasn't startled, otherwise it might not have been as enjoyable.

We packed up at the sanctuary around 1 p.m. and headed home. After spending a little time at home, we decided to venture back out to run a few errands and to get ice cream.

Last year Angie and I were out and about and stumbled across this ice cream place that was awesome, but we didn't remember where it was or the name of it. So, it took some trial and error of us driving around aimlessly, but we eventually found it and it was worth the work of finding it.

The ice cream was great and the whole scene there is pretty neat. There is this house next to the ice cream place that has three big cow statues in its yard and a putting green. Anna and I were over there enjoying the scene and Angie snapped this photo.
I honestly had no idea that the sign was there. I'm sure this will knock me down a peg or two on the ideal parent scale, but oh well... it was an honest mistake... and made for a great photo.

We spent the rest of the afternoon back at home doing yard work and whatnot. For some reason, Anna was in the garage with Sammy and wanted to put her helment on, so Sammy obliged. It was funny at first, but it turned hilarious when Anna wanted to leave it on for the rest of the day.

Sammy snapped this pic of Anna playing in her sandbox with her helmet on... she was doing everything with it. Anna actually went kicking and screaming when Angie took Anna's helmet off to bring her in the house for a bath. It was classic.

Anyway, as you can see it was a great day for Anna all around... and for the rest of us too.