We have had such cold weather lately.  I mean, seriously….enough for me to wear sweats in the middle of the day and for Rich to start up our fireplace at night.  So cold in July?  That’s not normal for southern California! 

But today…today was the first day that it actually warmed up.  Finally! So I suggested to the kids that we go to the pool, since it was getting warm at 11:00am.  The catch?  That we pick the farthest pool from our house (we have many community pools in our town) and we WALK there.  Yep…mama wanted some exercise!  And I was up for an adventure.  So out of all the kids, only the youngest four were willing.  So we packed up our lunches and towels, and me, A.J., Aislynn, Andrew, and Aria headed out the door!  I brought the stroller, of course, because I knew Aria couldn’t walk that long.  Plus, we needed something to carry all our stuff. 

On our way out the door, poor Milo kept trying to sneak out…and so I figured, hey, he might like the walk.  So I put his leash on him, and he was so excited!  You could just read it on his face: A walk with the fam!  This is gonna be fun!!  Fun! Fun!

Well, halfway there…. he pooped out.  I had to put him in the bottom basket of the stroller.

Poor Milo.  Doesn’t he just look so ashamed that he couldn’t make it the whole way?  His face just says it all in this photo.

Anyway, we continued on.  The kids had to stop and examine the various bugs we saw along the way. 

We also had to stop at any interesting thing that we came upon….

Like this frog.  Afterall, it’s not often that they get to sit on a big, cement frog, right?

This time of year, our town has rows and rows of these beautiful blue/purple flowers almost everywhere you look.  They are my absolutely favorite.  Rich will know the name of them, because see, not only is he our chef in the family, he is also our horticulturist.  Me? Not so much.  I don’t cook.  I don’t plant.  I bake.

It took us about an hour to get to the pool.  The kids weren’t complaining, and that surprised me.  I guess they really enjoyed the walk there!  (as it is so obviously shown in A.J.’s facial expression in the photo above, right?  Well, in truth I think he was just annoyed at taking yet another photo.)

Aria fell asleep in her stroller right before we got to the pool.  She ended up sleeping most of the time we were at the pool.  I didn’t want to wake her because it’s so rare that she sleeps in the daytime lately.  I figured she must have needed the nap.

Here she and Andrew did their best to splash water on me as I sat in the lounge chair.  I love when the camera catches the water droplets in mid-air.  So cool.

We had the entire pool to ourselves.  So nice when that happens!  This is one of the smaller pools in our community,  but it’s one of my favorites.   It’s sort of hidden down at the very end of our main street.  Maybe not a lot of people know about it, and that’s why it’s always empty?    It’s really like having our own private pool….er, well…except it’s not in our backyard, but about mile or so away. 

And Milo?  He spent the three hours poolside, relaxing in the shade with his water close by.  He also slept most of that time!  On the walk home, I’m happy to report that he didn’t need a stroller break.  He made it all the way! I think he wanted to prove himself (and gain some of his dignity back!) 

The kids, on the other hand, well they complained on the way back.  Not a whole lot, but enough that I was happy when Tony drove by in his car.  I waved him down, he circled around, and he took a few kids home for me.  By that time we had walked most of the way home and only had about 15 minutes left until we reached home…but it would have been a long 15 minutes with whiney kids!  So I was glad to see them off in the car.

And tonight?  Well, I think those kids are going to sleep pretty good!  They were such troopers!  They got their pool time, and I got my daily exercise.  It was a good day