March Magic

Today exemplifies why I am enjoying living here. It's our first day (of hopefully 3 in a row) of the year over 60°F. (OK, obviously *that's* not what I enjoy about here - no 60's til mid-March STINKS! Esp. when we have the possibility of snow showers forecast for the weekend, but) there's no denying that spring is thoroughly appreciated here. It's impossible to live through the nasty winters & take spring for granted.

We had no St. Patty's plans this afternoon, but after I picked Will up from school, we went downtown to eat & revel in the sun! Downtown is so vibrant - full of delicious restaurants & cool shops. Since Sis & I hadn't eaten lunch, yet, we went to Five Guys for the *best* burger & fries (and fountain caffeine-free diet coke for me! :-)) The kids LOVE eating the bulk peanuts there, too. After "tea", we took our left-over fries and headed over to the riverwalk. We passed people partying on the patio at Jimmy's Grill, but we weren't strong enough to walk past Sugar Monkey Cupakes without opening the door. We got one Brown Butter Vanilla cupcake to go and headed down to the riverwalk.

It feels SO GOOD to sit there in the sun!!! And something interesting *always* happens. The kids fed our extra fries to the ducks & geese, and our wood duck was with them!

(All last year, we saw one single wood duck hanging out occasionally with the other waterfowl, and here he was on day 1 of the season!) He has this hysterical high, light quack that sounds more like a mouse than a duck. :-P We divvied up the decadent cupcake,

and after all our food was gone, we headed down the walkway. Everyone you encounter along the riverwalk is so friendly - even the questionably-dressed teenagers, who you'd fear would be rude or at least too cool to acknowledge you, are always so nice, esp. to the kids. Everyone always talks to them politely & sweet. We saw the first crocuses of the season, and when we reached the amphitheater labyrinth, I spied a brown animal gnawing on the sprouting tulip greens. It was a muskrat! And this thing was TAME!!! He did not give a flip how close we got or loud we talked. We were fascinated! The kids decided to call him "Stinky" (nice & oh so predictable :-P) and we hung out with him for at least 20 minutes.

(BTW - the building that my dance studio is in is in the upper right of this pic.)

Why did we leave? B/c Will was *hot*. Hot! Outside! Praise. (Granted we were wearing jeans & long sleeves in the strong sun, but still - ahhhhh! :-)) It was only two hours out & about, but that simple-turned-delicious-and-entertaining afternoon totally defines what I fancy about living here.

This evening is going to be just as awesome: JB is actually coming home early so we can go out on a mid-week date night!!!!!!! We're going to our fave movie theatre that serves dinner & drinks to you in your seat during the show to see Matt Damon's new movie, Green Zone.

PS - I still stand by my awesome vitamin D supplement we've taken all winter, but WOW, does my body feel better to have gotten it naturally from the sun this afternoon!!!