Though it’s not news to anyone in the Pacific Northwest, or anyone with a Weather-channel addiction, we’ve been having one of those weird not-a-winter things going on for the last few months.  We’re further North than where I grew up in Michigan, and yet we’ve had NO snow this year.  Well, there were a few flakes, and once we saw about 1/16th of an inch on the ground, but it was gone about 6 seconds later.  Instead it’s been warm and sunny.  The flowering plum trees (or whatever they are) in our subdivision have already bloomed, and our Rhododendrons are done as well.  The tulips are up early, the moss is in full swing, and we’re already a month into the lawn-mowing season.  It’s cool for the boys, as it lets them get out and have a bit more fun than our living room, family room, or partially-converted garage allow.

A few weeks ago we took a short trip Sullivan Park at Silver Lake, the nearest park to our home, and let the boys express their wanderlust for a bit.  The boys carefully examined the play area, before divising a plan, splitting their forces and attempting to conquer both fronts, while leading Katie and I on a merry chase.  We then had a partially successful picnic, before heading home.  Here’re some photos of the day’s festivities.  I’m trying to embed a Picasa web album, so please let me know if this works for you.  (it should be automatically playing as a slide show – if you hold your mouse over the picture, the controls will appear at the bottom – you can pause, restart, go back, or forward – also, in the left hand corner is a little bubble that *should* be green initially, if you click this it will toggle captions off and back on).