A day in the sun

The nice thing about working for the Church is that holy days of obligations are days off. So after going to Mass on Wednesday, I’m going to spend the day with family and friends.

My friend Andy—who’s been living in Louisiana the last couple of years working as youth and music minister for a couple of parishes—is back in town for vacation so a bunch of us are taking off for the day to Bradley Palmer State Park in Ipswich. It’s a bucolic little park, not very close to anything and not much besides trails inside…

Except, a very nice wading pool for kids. This place is great. There’s several features that throw water in various directions; it’s fenced in so that kids can’t wander too far; there are picnic tables and grills; and while it’s always packed—especially on near-90 days like Wednesday promises to be—it’s never overwhelming, at least on weekdays when everyone else has to be working.

I’m very excited because I haven’t been able to see Isabella at the pool this year and Melanie says she’s taken to it like, well, a fish to water if you’ll excuse the cliche.

Speaking of Isabella, she’s had a cute little episode the other day when she found my old belt and wanted to wear it like I do. So I wrapped it around her several times and latched it. It still hung down like a cowboys gunbelt, but she was very happy with her fashion statement and spent quite some time staring at herself in the floor-length mirror and laughing uproariously.

Here’s the video of it: