The Spring-bordering-on-Summer weather has continued this week, but sadly will come to an unceremonious end this weekend, when it is supposed to be raining and not nearly as warm. With that in Mind, Everett and I decided that we should maximize the sunny time we have, and Daddy was happy to accomodate our wishes with an after-school trip to Prospect Park.
Usually, we visit the West side of the park, which is closest to our house and where we can easily walk or scooter. But yesterday, Daddy picked us up after school in the car, so we could visit the East side of the park - a real treat, as you'll soon see.
Why such a treat? Well, first of all, the East side of the park is where the Prospect Park Boathouse, which houses
the only urban Audubon Center in the country. So of course, as soon as we got to the park, we headed for the
Boathouse, which is a beautiful classically designed building on a lullwater lake.
We loved the views of the Boathouse from the "Monet bridge" across the lake, and spent some time watching fishermen casting for Bass, as well as some of the wildlife in the lake, like ducks and turtles -
Can you spot the turtle swimming to the left of Daddy's shadow?
Then, it was time to head inside to explore the Audubon Center's exhibits, most of which focus on animals native to Brooklyn and the park.
The cool part of each of the animal exhibits is that you can look "through their eyes" to see what they would see in real life...
For example, in the case of both squirrels and ducks, both have peripheral vision, so when you look through the back of the statues, there is actually a little video monitor with a camera feed from the "eyes" of the animals that shows you their full field of vision.
Fun! Needless to say, Everett and I checket out every animal available, including the red cardinal.
After all that peripheral looking around, we got hungry and headed back into the sunshine for a snack. In this case, it was a couple of cupcakes from a birthday party in Everett's class. Jeannette, one of Everett's favorite teachers and our sometime babysitter had her birthday, and sent Daddy off after school with a cupcake for each of us. Yum!
Everett finished his first, and headed straight for the lake, though I don't think he liked the chains keeping him from the water.
You can guess his next move, can't you?
Daddy got there just in time...
I, on the other hand, fell into a deep food coma after finishing my snack, but Everett wouldn't have any of that.
He was getting me up impatiently because he wanted to show me a cool tree he had spotted nearby and wanted to explore.
While it was nice and cool inside the tree, I thought it would be even more fun on top of the tree - so I started doing what any five year old boy would do - climb!
I got just high enough to spot another, even cooler looking tree, and just couldn't resist it's pull...
Doesn't this tree just scream, "climb me?" Well, yes it does.
Ahh, nice and comfy up here...
Everett is not one to be left behind, so once I gave him a hand, he climbed up onto a branch as well.
Although all that climbing seemed to tucker him out, and he decided he needed to rest his cheeks, as he often does.
But there was not much time for rest. Our park adventure wasn't even half way over! I think I'll let Everett tell you about the rest of it tomorrow.
