A Trip to Stanford and the Rains Come

It's been raining for the past few days. We've been in the throes of a terrible drought, so we really need the rain and the kids haven't seen it in weeks. Sophie wasn't even walking when we last got a good thunderstorm. So I've been turning 'em loose to play in it. Because if I had to entertain them for days on end without using the yard, I think we'd all go insane.

On the last nice day we had, we traveled up to Stanford, planning to see the sculpture garden. There are two there, and we've been to the Rodins, but hadn't seen the New Guinea collection. We were planning to meet up with some friends. And then Mom got lost. I parked somewhere weird and walked the wrong way for a while. Eventually, after an hour of walking with a three year old and and a one year old in the Ergo, we found our friends in front of the only art we could reliably find and Mom collapsed in the gravel. The three year old is evidently magic and took this opportunity to run around in circles throwing gravel, pretending to be a firework.

Austin crashes the Law Library

Shhhhhhhh

Sophie at the Gates of Hell

Sophie and the Three Shades

Austin attempting to climb an Eve other than me

My favorite shot of the day. They look so cultured!

 When it was time to go home I knew it was going to be impossible to walk back to the car. Happily, the Stanford bus is free! It's free for everyone! Hooray!

Unhappily, we got on the wrong one. It took us to the train station where we had to wait about five minutes or so for the right bus that was actually going around Stanford. Austin thought this was awesome. And when the next bus came, the driver took such good care of us. He gave Austin a bus schedule to flip through and talked to us the whole time. We picked up a man with a saxophone and it was only the five of us, me, Austin, Sophie, the driver and the sax player. The sax man waggled his keys for the kids and then began to serenade Sophie, who was completely mesmerized. I've never heard a person play the sax so soft. And when it was time to get off, the driver let Austin kneel the bus, flipping all the switches for the hydraulics and deploying the ramp and everything.

We're some lucky peeps. And then the rains came, and that was lucky too...

When it's not wet enough from the rain, your brother might help make some puddles with the hose

And there might be some authentic, undoctored puddles from the rain still on the slate. Please note the change of clothes: this is a natural outcome of turning your back on a 3 year old with a hose