Thursday, October 27, 2011

Lessons learned on a Rainy outing

So yesterday I woke up full of energy and ready for an adventure with Marisol and Gerry. I thought it was supposed to be another beautiful day, and the forecast for our neighborhood said 70 and sunny. Perfect!

We made the preparations. I made lunches. We got dressed. Loaded up the van and stopped at an ATM for some cash.

As we drove out of Alexandria towards Washington DC I noticed that although it was mostly sunny above us, the sky looked very foreboding and ominous where we were headed. uh oh. So I crossed my fingers and kept going - we couldn't stop now!

Leesburg Animal Park is almost an hour drive from us. Five minutes before we got there it started raining. Shoot. Of course I didn't have rain gear - it was supposed to be sunny and 70! Luckily I did bring some warm clothes. I ran through options in my head - go to a store and buy some rain gear? Or at least kill some time till the rain stopped?

We ended up hanging out in the car for half an hour or so then putting our warmest clothes on and braving the weather. The kids were awesome, especially Marisol, who does NOT like to get wet. I told her that I learned a lesson - to check the weather of where you were going, not just your home! She also learned a lesson on the way - 4 headbands in your hair can give you a headache. :-)

They both loved the animals and Gerry is following in his big sister's footsteps - he was brave enough to touch a donkey, pig, and feed some sheep. This surprised me since he is often afraid of dogs at the park!

After the animals we headed over to "Pumpkinville", had some free cider and did as many fun things as we could. I even took them down two huge slides on my lap to spare them wet bottoms (I on the other-hand look like I waded up to my waist into the nearby pond!) They really were troopers and we made the best of it. At least there were no lines - we were almost the only ones there!

Today we are all recovering and slightly sick. You can read about that here.

2 comments:

Mom said...

It was a pretty good lesson you learned about checking the weather....but I think the better one you practiced was making the best of a "not great" situation! I'm really proud of you and Mari both!

Susan May said...

You're right! Of course that is the bigger lesson we learned. Thanks Mom, we love you!!