Knighton Park Festival
It's great to live next to a park, especially on days when something fun is going on there. Knighton Park had summer festival right before the beginning of the school year with jumpy castles, a dog show, lots of food, and lots more.
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| Craig and Maya at the jumpy castles. Maya took one look at the face on this thing and decided it wasn't for her. Oh well, maybe the carousel will be a hit. |
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| It was pretty hot that day. What better way to cool down than with a "Knighton Park Special" a.k.a. an ice cream cone with a candy bar sticking out of it. The reason you don't see the candy bar in this picture is because I already ate it! |
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| Ice cream mustache |
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| Maya's first time on a carousel. Verdict - awesome! She wanted to go around again and again. |
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| Flying airplane ride - meh. |
Abbey Park
We decided to go on an adventure to Abbey Park on day to see what it would be like to go without our dog Pete. There is one area of the park with a petting zoo - no dogs allowed - that I was particularly interested to see. The petting zoo was a let down, with just a few scraggly guinea pigs and an old peacock missing most of its feathers. Eek. On the bright side, the rest of the park was beautiful and fun. Here are a couple of pictures.
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| Craig and Maya playing around the ruins of the old Abbey cathedral |
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| Me and Craig, taking a break while Maya makes a run for it. |
Farm Day
Time for a real petting zoo. I got a flyer in the mail for a place calling itself a "family farm." Intrigued, we decided to check it out. For a few pounds they give you a bucket full of different snacks that you can feed to all the animals on the farm. It was fun! Farmer Maya and Farmer Craig especially got into it.
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| Maya is ready to scale the fence to get up close and personal with the chicken heirloom varieties . We try to tell her to just throw the food through the fence, but she's not having it. |
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| chicky chicky chicky |
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| I know where Rhode Island is! |
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| Pigs can eat the carrots, Maya |
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Maya took riding the tractor around very seriously. She was ready to take it into the fields and made us truck her all around the animal pens like a real farmer.
Some kids like cars or trains, but for this kid there's only one amazing vehicle - the tractor. |
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| It's hard to really do it justice in a photograph, but there is a whole lot of sky in England. Look at the clouds over the farm in this picture. |
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| The farm had a lot of odds and ends. Here is an indoor all-weather sand box for the kids to play in. My personal favorite thing was a cage with black and white striped chipmunks in it that did back flips for fun. It was like watching a little circus show! |
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| This is Maya feeding the pony named Mia (pronounced "Maya" in England). They make a good pair. |
Aylestone Meadows
We took a little stroll down by the canal to see a new playground we have never been to before. It was a really long walk and Maya made it the whole way (with a little help from a frog).
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| Superfrog also went on a walk with us. |
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| Uh oh. Hurry! |
