Friday evening by the river

On Friday afternoon as I hung up yet another load of laundry, I felt a cool breeze coming through the open balcony windows. That, combined with the Friday urge I often get to just get out of the house and away prompted me to call Ryan to ask if he was fine with us going on a picnic for supper. He's always ready for a spontaneous adventure, so I set about finding food to bring, excited at the thought of getting out. 

It's summer. Yet we've not been able to do many "summer" things, between lots of energy spent trying to figure out what we were doing, and then a month of moving craziness. And then there's the heat... So it was extra special to have a breezy evening and a peaceful picnic at a not-very-crowded park by the river!

 Hadassah is getting more and more exploratory. While we paused for other pictures, she set off down this path, carefully stepping over each crack. The camera soon turned her direction. ;)

 Good food, great breeze, and getting to watch boats passing by! The only downside was prickly grass, but we had a bag for Hadassah to sit on and as long as we didn't shift position, the poking sensation stopped being too noticeable.

Beautiful crepe myrtle trees were in bloom. With "Hadassah" meaning "myrtle" as one of the meanings, we had more reason to get a picture. :)

 Hadassah is getting more and more expressive, and often recounts things over and over after they happen. Here she may have been telling the story of how the "BIG boat" let out a loud "honk!" as it went by (scaring her and causing her to cling to Mommy for a while - but later being the most interesting thing of the evening to her).

 As we left, the sky was the most beautiful blue... The air here has been so clear lately that I've not even bothered to check the AQI. It feels like such a freeing thing to just go outside if the weather is nice! And blue sky like this always makes me look in wonder...

I love the look of Hadassah leaning on Ryan's shoulder. He's such a good Daddy. We thought we might have to walk for a while to find a taxi, but thanks to Ryan's new phone with 4G that actually works and his new skills at using a Chinese taxi app, we got one to come out to where we were! Life is definitely easier with that app!

Today we went swimming for the second weekend in a row. Hadassah absolutely LOVES it. It took her a while to warm up to it (literally - the water was cool and she didn't want to get in at first) but this second time around she knew how fun it was that she didn't protest too much as we bobbed up and down to get wet. She enjoys kicking her arms and legs and wants to swim just like daddy. :) It gives us all good exercise, and is such fun to see Hadassah have such joy in the water. It's also nice to be doing normal summer-y things... Though I know the season is almost at it's end!