Sun Days

Everyone up here in the Pacific Northwest has been raving for the past few days about the unseasonably warm and sunny weather that we've been having for February. It's just been gorgeous up here for more than a week and we are reluctant to face the rain that we're expecting for the next few days; we have been able to go to the park and play in the afternoon for the last four days in a row! Several of these visits have been somewhat spontaneous. We are just hanging out at home...

(or in some cases, rolling around)

...and we decide that it's time to head to the little park right next to the library, or even to the playground that's in our subdivision. But Saturday afternoon was the perfect time for an impromptu trip to:

The Bliss Cupcake Bake Shop in Bethany! Decadent gourmet cupcakes here on the west side of Portland, complete with a little kids' table and some toys for the tiny diners. We got a chocolate cupcake for Andy and strawberry for Alton and me, then sat down to peel the paper off of our confections. See the eager little peeping eyes below.

We unveiled his mini cupcake and he regarded it carefully to figure out how best to pick it up.

He was really into the frosting!


Fast-forward to an unfortunate frosting incident, and we are no longer interested in the now-plain strawberry cupcake, so we decide to try a bite of Daddy's chocolate.


Despite his rapturous looks of pleasure, he was satisfied after just a few bites of the chocolate cupcake and moved on to the little toy corner, where there were...BOOKS!!!

But we couldn't waste too much daylight, because we had decided to check out the cool "Pirate Park" nearby! Hidden in a walking trail park was a cluster of play structures detailed to look nautical and pirate-like. So Alton clapped on his hat and off we went!

We found the park with little trouble thanks to some directions I found online, and Alton was ready to go explore. Here we are walking up a "gangway."

Climbing to the periscope.

Spying with Daddy.

He loves to climb on ladders! (We better not leave that step-stool out.)

Some fun trips down the slide and before we knew it, the sun was going down and it was time to head home. What an original weekend adventure!