Right now, our outings are far more down to earth. There's the rush to get ourselves and three little ones out the door, the jumping out of the car three times before we leave to retrieve forgotten items, the five minute drive to our destination, and of course the much slower pace when we get there (but we do often manage to get a nice and much needed take-out Americano on the way).
Today, we simply had an early fall outing to explore a new playground and park which is nearby. We tried out the new playground equipment (really cool) and walked around the neighborhood, exploring a nearby path along the woods and looking for colourful leaves and little critters.
Measured in distance covered and scenery explored, this outing was a mere shadow of our pre-kids expeditions. But this time, there was delight and wonder at seeing snow-berries, big beetles and spiders,
there was the careful gathering of leaves and the assembly of leaf-bouquets,
there was the lengthy and elaborate search for the one stick which would be appropriate as a fairy wand, and the flitting in and out of trees by two little golden haired fairies.
No, it was not comparable to our pre-kids explorations. It was better.
