The Toyon Tree: UFFA: Accidental fun on a random Saturday

A few weeks ago, I said to Grady's daddy, "I am taking the baby for a hike in the morning, and then I am going to the Babies R Us to buy a lightweight stroller for Monterey. You can come if you want, but you don't have to."

And thus an unforced family funtime adventure was born. Because of course Jasper wanted to come with us. With an agenda like that and company like us, wouldn't you? Jasper then made the clever addition of a playground to our schedule and the day was already well on its way to being great. As it turns out, we can have successful days, even if I am not bossy. I mean, it happened once.

For the hike, we did my most familiar old running loop -- an easy four-miler through Redwood Park that my friend Diana refers to as "ladies hike." I used to run that loop almost every morning with Reese and Puppet, until it started to feel a bit short and then I started adapting it. But it was always the fall-back, the standard, the short-on-time course.

Then we hit a nearby playground, where an adult exercise class was taking place while the children ran wild. Rather clever, we thought. Grady is really getting a kick out of playgrounds these days. They all seem to have stairs now instead of ladders, and he loves climbing up to the top:

He also took a liking to yet another two-year-old girl, but I don't have a picture, because I was too busy getting him off of her. See, his affections were expressed as, "Imma gonna grab your hair and taste your face!!!!!" She was astoundingly patient as we disentangled him from her gorgeous black curls.

After we bought our new mini-stroller (we have a great jogging stroller, but it takes up the entire back of the car, and we were going on a road trip with dogs, luggage, and baby) (there really isn't a story to the stroller shopping part) (we got a purple one), Jasper decreed that it was time for lunch, which was really just so smart of him. We tried to go to Rudy's, but boy was it crowded. I pondered briefly and came up with Barney's, not even realizing that they have this ridiculously lovely patio in the back. Grady had a delightful time, and gave me some faces that were not 100% hambone: