Where the White Things Are: Autumn at Eastside Park

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Autumn at Eastside Park

Yesterday was golden: golden sunshine, golden leaves, golden MOMENT with my kids at our favorite park. It was absolutely dreamy with all of that gold everywhere. Eastside park is my favorite block in Grandview, hands down.

From my journal entry on November 1st, 2016:

It's November, and the sun came out for the first time in over a week! Jay and Rose had a dentist appointment at 3pm today, so I checked them out of school at 1:30pm and we went to Eastside Park to play in the leaves. We have been leaf-ing it up at that park since Jay was 1 year old, and I look forward to it every year. I love gorgeous fall leaves, and that park has giant maples that pile the ground in bright yellow leaves. When the sun comes out, the place GLOWS. I adore it.

I realized that we will be gone on our traditional leisurely leaf-playing weekend this year. And the afternoons this week are swamped! Halloween yesterday, dentist appointments AND parent teacher conferences for the kids today, and young women in excellence plus prepping for our long weekend tomorrow. And the City of Grandview likes to vacuum up all its leaves during the second week of November. Our leaf time was limited! When could we get our yearly leaf-romp in? The answer came to me in a ray of golden sunshine: check the kids out of school early today to PLAY before their dental appointment.

[trying to get Amber to look into the sun for the picture: not successful]

[bright sun!]

We couldn't have asked for better weather. After well over a week of 90% clouds, rain, cold, and/or wind, it mellowed out into a beautiful 64 degrees and sunny. We frolicked in the leaves and scooped them up into a pile with sticks. A lady across the street from the park was raking leaves in her own yard and walked over to loan us her rake. It was so nice of her! We got a nice big pile and returned the rake. Then she and her husband dragged a giant tarp of their leaves across the street and dumped them onto the kids, tripling the size of our leaf pile in the process! It was awesome, and brought back so many childhood memories.

After a little while in the leaves, we ventured further abroad. Amber wanted to roam the park, and Jay was concerned about her so he followed, and Rose soon trotted after them, with me trailing in their wake. We visited the merry-go-round, two slides, and the best swings in town, the ones with SUPER long 20 foot chains that let you go flying high into the sky with some good strong pumping. I even took a turn (in spite of my tendency to motion sickness) and it was a RUSH sailing into the trees that high! Jay does not like heights, so he got down and took pictures of us girls swinging.

I love that dappled light.

After a while we went back to our leaf pile and Jay and Rose had a leaf-war. Amber, ever-exploring, lost a boot and removed her bow in her amble-ings, and slid down a nasty slide that had been egged on Halloween last night. She returned to me damp and dirty. Dentist time! {end journal entry}