Playdate With New Friends
We started the day with strawberry and banana pancakes which, to you, might sound pretty straight forward. What if you don’t have a fry pan to cook them in though? Well that’s where Kelly prowess really comes to the fore. With a slightly thicker mix, a very careful pour and more than a watchful eye, pancakes can be made, with ease apparently, in a good old fashioned, run of the mill, $8 from Shopko saucepan. Who would have thunk it? And not just that, she was able to make a whole stack of them, just like at home, just like she had all of her regular kitchen utensils and all of her regular creature-comforts at hand.
Our plan for today was to spend it getting to know some new friends, Jamie and Amy, that Kelly met a few weeks ago whilst I was at the Chargers game. The best part, aside from the fact that it was nice to get out and go somewhere different was that they happened to have 3 kids. All boys. All under 5. Now I know we’re in a foreign country and doing things with our boys can be tough but we are (essentially) on vacation and neither of us are working at the moment. Three boys under 5 whilst both parents are working full-time? Now, that deserves a medal.
So when you add our 2 to their 3 we have 5 boys under 5 running around like crazy. Whilst we were happy that they all got to mix, I think deep down, at some point, we must all have wondered about what might come of the day. Particularly the end when little bellies get hungry and little eyes get tired.
We spent the first few hours at the Fox Cities Universal Playground just north of Appleton. This park was like a wonderland with so many things for the kids to see and explore. It was in fact dedicated in 2004 as a playground for all ages and all abilities which made it just great for the little ones that aren’t quite walking yet. The bigger boys, with their mummies, got a little adventurous and explored the little hills not far away as us blokes - the daddies, watched the 2 crawlers and spoke football, baseball and most other types of sports.
We spent a really great afternoon / evening at their place, were fed like kings and talked blissfully as the boys played in the basement with barely so much as an occasional scream. I’m sure the toys on top of toys made that possible but quite frankly, we were so excited that they were having a good time it didn’t matter too much for what reason it was happening.
