loving the warm(er) weather!

we got kind of a late start this morning. erik and i still have this stupid cold, so i decided to let him sleep as long as he needed to, and he was in a much better mood when he woke today than yesterday. last weekend peter checked out a book about making paper airplanes from the library and made this little round airplane that looks like a pope's hat. he put it on erik's stuffed brobee's head, and when erik saw it this morning, it really tickled him. he went on and on about brobee's "hat" and laughed about it for a good five minutes. it was really cute. we had meetings/seminars scheduled all day at the lab today so it distracted me from the disaster that was my rt-pcr yesterday, and that was a good thing. and i really enjoyed the walk from the bst down to cellomics afterward since the weather was so nice and i had my lost podcast to listen to.

it was close to 60 degrees this afternoon and peter and i took erik to our favorite AWESOME playground in schenley park. it seems like it's been forever since we've been able to go there, and all throughout the winter whenever we'd drive past it, erik would look longingly and say sadly "playground wet" or "cold outside." it was so nice this evening and there were quite a few parents with their kids at the park. erik was loving the slides and the merry-go-round and all of the other great stuff they have to play on there, and i loved the fresh air and getting to play and take more pictures and videos with my new camera.

i think erik's favorite play area is the castle, which has a really cool steep slide, a little "jail," and walls/platforms to climb on. here's a short video of him climbing up the stairs and going down the slide:



and a few cute pics of erik having a great time:






we were treated to another beautiful sunset tonight, and even though it's such a cliche, i had to take a few pictures. the cloud patterns were really interesting and gorgeous.




when it started to get just a little too cool and a little too dark, we decided it was time to go, and went down the street to panera for dinner. we've gone there with erik a few times and it's always been great. we all like the food, the atmosphere and music is nice, and most of all, erik seems to always behave really well when we go there! he's a big bread fan to begin with, plus we always sit by the window so he can watch the cars drive past, and we get him one of those yogurt tubes that kids seem to love, and when erik is happy, peter and i are happy. we had a very relaxed and yummy dinner, then came home and spent the rest of the evening reading books with erik before it was his bedtime. today was a good day.