Columbus Day

sisters

We woke up today with no real plans.  I had an appointment in the morning but that was it.  Laura called to see if Daniel could spend the day with us and that was agreeable.  So the day began.
And the children played video games or fought.  The dishes looked at me and the house felt oppressive.  I heard a lot of "mom, can I.....s" and "mom, he's _______", "mom tell her to stop!", "MoM!!!"
until I couldn't take it any more and I told everyone to get on their shoes.  There was a lot of complaining and where are we going and I don't want to go-ing, except Hannah was agreeable to a change of scenery.

So we went to St Mary's City and walked around.

It was beautiful, quiet (it's not open today but the grounds are) and peaceful.  The boys ran from tree to tree, found "natures baseball" and threw it around.

The girls meandered and talked nicely.

Z sniffed every tree and rock and bush.

Daniel, Ethan and Ziva

We walked down to a little beachy spot and they dug for snails and crabs and played in the sand and water for a long time.

treasure hunting

We found a trail called "swamp trail" that really was.  Mud covered shoes and dog were the price we paid for that little adventure.  A bargain!

entrance to swamp trail, deceptively clean

cute building

Before we could let Harry the dirty dog into the car we had to give her a puddle bath, she was thrilled.

a puddle bath
She had a real bath when we got home

Then we stopped by Brusters for a treat on the way home.  When we pulled in the neighborhood I dropped the boys at the green and we all came home happy and full of fresh air and ice cream.

Brusters for all, including a puppy Sundae