Cherry Blossom Bliss (and other adventures)

This seaside city where we are currently living is famous for its extravagant display of thousands of Japanese Cherry Blossom trees in bloom every spring. Happily, we are here in town during the peak week of blooms. Yesterday we made a trip to this city's Central Park to take in the glorious display.

The cherry blossoms were indeed gorgeous. The main thoroughfare of this park was lined with the cherry trees, and the combined effect of them all together was simply beautiful. What wonderful evidence of our Father's creative hand!

The only drawback, and unfortunately a rather large one, was that the park was packed with hordes of tourists, who found our blonde, blue-eyed little girls in their double stroller just too irresistible. We found that we could not pause, even briefly, and stop the stroller because literally dozens of people would be crowded around the stroller in a moment, trying to touch the girls, take their picture, pose for a picture with them, etc etc. It was all a bit overwhelming for the girls and for us. We found ourselves avoiding some of the prettier sections of the park just to get away from all of the people! We had to say no to almost all the pictures--inevitably, if we agreed to one picture there were 10-20 more people that came up and wanted to take pictures. We could have spent the whole morning in a photo shoot!

We finally ventured off the beaten path and into a paid area of the park, which reduced the crowds considerably. We then could stop and take a few pictures--the girls and mommy! (Chloe with her fake smile!)

We then made our way through the zoo area of the park, which included this opportunity for John and Clara Anne to ride a horse together. It was the first time for both of them!

Our next goal was to make our way to a large tower, just next to the park, where visitors could pay to go up the tower and take in the view. We hiked uphill and down, but the only entrance we could find to the tower involved hundreds of steps, which was not feasible with the stroller. We finally did find a way up, but at the top decided it wasn't worth the fee since the air was somewhat smoggy. I definitely got my exercise though!

On the way home we decided to take a brief detour to the beautiful grassy square near our hotel to fly our kite, which we had dragged along with us the whole morning. The sun was shining, the grass was appealingly soft and green, and so we spread out some jackets, sat down and had a little snack, and John even perfected the art of flying the kite while lying down!

I think we've figured out how to really relax! It's pretty sad when you can't even be bothered to stand up to fly a kite! Fun times were had by all.

Now if only all those contractions I'm having would actually produce a baby . . . stay tuned!