Pure Childhood Happiness

These pictures from August sat almost untouched for a month because there were just so many that I loved. I finally decided I would just post them all, so prepare for an even more picture-heavy post then usual!

Since Brian's started back to work, I've had a flexible schedule in mind for the kids' and my weeks.  I like to do our big activities in the morning and then stay at home or visit a nearby park in the afternoons.  So we have: grocery day, museum/aquarium day, library day, stay-at-home-and-clean-and-do-laundry day, and one day a week I like to explore somewhere new in the city.  There's not a set day of the weeks that these all take place on (except Library Day on Thursday), I just plan our weekly schedule around the weather forecast and grocery needs. 

This particular week in August I didn't have inspiration for our "explore" day, so I asked Nathan the night before if there was anything he would like to do.  Well!  He informed me that we had been on the green line and red line and blue line (of the "T"), but not the orange line - and he wanted to go somewhere on the orange line!

I spent some time that evening looking at the orange line route and saw that one of the stops was near The First Church of Christ, Scientist.  The church was supposed to have some nice park-like grounds, complete with a reflecting pool and fountains for kids to play in.  (Actually the fastest way to get there was straight off our T line, the green line, but we spent some extra time on the T to fulfill Nathan's request for the outing!)

The first sight that greeted us upon arriving at the church was the lovely reflecting pool.

I almost felt like I was in Europe due to the beautiful architecture of the church!

At the far end of the reflecting pool, we found the fountains.  I thought the kids might want to play so I brought a change of clothes just in case.  And how fortunate that was because the kids had an absolutely amazing time playing in the water!  This next series of pictures can speak for themselves...

When the kids were finally all fountain-ed out, we changed clothes and scouted out a nice shaded spot to eat lunch.  During that scouting I spotted a very exciting sight for Mommy: a "Bon Me" food truck.  I had randomly watched a few episodes of The Food Network's Amazing Food Truck Race show a few years ago, and one of the trucks (I think the one that won) sold bahn mi's, a Vietnamese sandwich.  So I was pumped for the chance to try one for myself!  Here's Nathan holding our sandwich and a pair of chopsticks, which he requested I pick up from the condiment/napkin selection even though they weren't needed to eat our food. 

I LOVED the sandwich but (fortunately for Mama) the kids weren't a fan.  So while they dined on cheese and crackers and fruit and veggies, I inhaled my delicious sandwich.  However Nathan did find a use for his chopsticks - they are excellent for stabbing and picking up grapes

This was the view from our picnic spot, absolutely beautiful!

After lunch I mentioned that I would like to see inside the church and to my surprise Nathan was enthused about the idea.  As we walked around the far side of the church, we saw a man standing at the open door at the back of the church.  I chatted him up and he said that actually the small chapel (where we were standing) was open and had a service starting in 15 minutes that we were welcome to attend.  I asked if I could just take the kids up and see the church since we needed to head home soon for naptime. 

The chapel was beautiful inside and as the children and I sat in one of the back pews, I showed them the organ and the beautiful stained glass windows in the church.  An older gentlemen chatted with me in the sanctuary and then I talked with lady on the way out who was originally from North Carolina.  Everyone was super friendly!

We also found out that the main church didn't open until 1:00 pm that day, so a tour of that was out as well.  Nathan acted genuinely disappointed that we wouldn't be able to see it, so we'll try to make it back another day (strategically scheduled on a Bon Me truck day, of course!).

As we walked around the front of the church, a man randomly spoke to me and told me not to miss the sculptures scattered around the front of the church.  I'm so glad he did because I would have missed them and we hadn't seen anything like this before.  First there were "boulders" in the trees in one area...

...then behind them there were trees dressed up in giant clothes!

On our way back to the T we finally got a beautiful view of the font of the church.

Another successful exploring day!