Yesterday was great. My parents, Mark, and I spent the day with my cousin Michele and her kids Mary and Connell. Her husband is attending the NEA convention, which is in town this week, so they all came in. While he's attending to business, Michele & Company are making the rounds and visiting family and friends.

We started out by having lunch at the McD's on Oregon Avenue, which has a HUGE play area that the kids really liked. Then we followed it up with an afternoon at the park at Marconi Plaza. They have swings and a bunch of playground equipment for climbing on, sliding down, etc. In particular, I pointed out to Michele the site of the "train" that has two slides, a tunnel, a steering wheel, and various bars to climb on. "Remember the short stories I used to write? Remember the wooden fort that made an appearance in several of them? It used to be where this train is now." Which is true. When I was in grade school and high school, I wrote a series of short stories. Anyone who knew my friends and me also knew which of the characters corresponded to each of us... I'll just say that we had our share of adventures in those stories. :o) But not only did WE appear in the stories, so did various neighborhood landmarks, and the wooden fort that was in Marconi Plaza at the time was one of them.

Anyway, on the heels of that 30th Anniversary I posted about a few weeks ago, it was nice to spend a day with my cousin and her family, enjoying the same park that I spent plenty of time in while growing up. We got a laugh when my dad, who apparently got tuckered out after a day with two young'uns, dozed off while sitting on the bench and took a cat nap. LOL, well, now Mark knows where I got my Nap Attack gene from.

What a great day! I wish I could schedule about 365 more just like it. :o)