Boys on Playgrounds

A few weeks ago we drove over to Anglesea, Victoria for the wedding of our friends Mick & Lauren.  The little town is at the other end of the Great Ocean Road, so we embarked on the 9 hour drive with Jen & Dean and rented a little beach house for just less than a week.  It was the longest vacation Toff's had in at least 2 years, and was such a nice, welcome break after a crazy busy summer at the bakery.  

And the wedding!  The ceremony was short and sweet on a lovely afternoon beach, with everyone watching with a beer in hand. Afterwards we all just walked back to the bride & grooms house where we enjoyed pizza from the mobile wood-fired pizza oven they hired and danced the night away.  Especially Trip.  He was the star of the dance floor!  More photos on that later (of course!  I have more photos!).  But for now, it's a rainy day after so many hot, sticky, humid ones, so I'm off to grab a bowl of watermelon and sit out on the back patio and enjoy the cool breeze.

Here are some photos of the awesome playground we discovered on a day trip to Lorne, a cute coastal town on the Great Ocean Road.  Jen did some shopping, I took photos of bakeries and cafes to bring back ideas for our bakery (always!  I am always looking at how other people store/shelve/serve/paint things to get ideas!), and Dean checked out some surf shops while Toff & Trip did this:

Trip about to get his first "rock climbing" lesson.
Rule #1: never climb alone. 

Obviously Toff had to show Trip how it's done.
Why have kids if you can't rediscover your inner child on playgrounds?

Here we go!

Pure, unrestrained happiness.

How happy does Toff look??? :-)

Figuring out how to do it on our own...

Down we go!

...pretending like I can still do "artsy" photography when 98.5% of the photos I take nowadays involve a baby...

On the way up!

First ride on a big-kid swing!
Trip really thinks that he is a "big kid."  He refuses sippy cups, high chairs, and is beginning to even say no to diapers.
Oh dear.  Good thing we have another baby on its way soon!

That smile!
Oh.  That smile.

And then we went down the slide head first...

...And decided that we had had quite enough fun on the playground, thankyouverymuch.  So we found a cafe to get a cool drink at and flirt with all of the pretty girls.  This kid is the most social person I know.  Whenever we're in public, he will simply walk up to each and every person he encounters, stand at their feet until they look at him, and then reward them with the biggest, cutest smile.  It is the funniest thing ever to watch.  He's not afraid of anyone.  The tallest man or the longest beard will not deter him.  When you are 1 1/2 and have a 100 watt smile, everyone is your friend.

Catchin a ride back to the car!
One week left of Dad's dreadlocks!
Photos to come of that, of course.

xox

Cara