Frogs, Wagons, Bird Crap and the Williams

It's Saturday. Em and the boys have been couped up inside for a week or better. Em and I have been attempting to potty-train Rhys for the last three days. We're tired and we're frustrated. We need to get out of the house. So, that afternoon, we do.

Em and I purchased a two-seater wagon for the boys about two weeks ago on our latest trip to Vogelweh AFB. We dressed the boys, ourselves, and loaded drinks, snacks, and the boys in their green wagon and headed off-base for a long relaxing walk.

Just before we got off-base, Emma shrieked. I turned to her to find out that she had been shat upon by a rogue bird of some sort. She exclaimed what happened repeatedly while attempting to clean herself off. Thankfully, there wasn't much to clean, as the bird or whatever it was had terrible aim. I and the boys were mildly amused. Emma, on the other hand was not.

We continue on...

For those of you who do not know, there are extensive walking/riding trails right outside Patch Barracks. If you are walking, they start immediately after exiting the front gate to your left. There is a children's play-area along the path, but as we were in the mood to wheel the boys around for a bit, we didn't stop there. Instead we heading down the path, and then up the path, and then down the path some more. The trail is quite hilly and while this makes it more desirable as a walking/riding course, it wasn't quite so inviting to either myself or Emma as we pulled along all sixty or so pounds of wagon, boys, and snacks. It was quite fun in an exerting kind of way. The picture below is an example of one of the hills. And this one wasn't one of the bad ones.

Now, we have been down those trails before and after about 10 or 15 minutes of rolling along in the wagon, we let Rhys out for a walk. Rhys took this opportunity as more of a dash than walk, and took off like a bat out of hell as soon as his little feet hit the ground. Impatient as always, he would turn around, look at us and babble. This babble I presumed was baby talk for, "Well, hurry the hell up here folks, I'm not getting any younger."

After walking awhile, Em and I noticed a body of water we never noticed before out in the woods. Since we still had plenty of time to kill, we rolled/walked down to it. Unbeknownst to us there was a huge pond behind Patch. It was quite beautiful and teeming with life. Frog life. There were hundreds, even thousands of frogs in this pond and it seemed like all of them were.."making baby frogs". Em managed to get some of them on camera.

We also took a moment to stop and feed some snacks to our very hungry, yet very curious boys. I managed to retain most of my fingers.

After a leisurely stroll around the pond and many more photos, we decide to head back. For some reason, the hills always seem much bigger on the way back. Rhys and Caden amused themselves as they played peek-a-boo under a blanket we brought with us. It was very amusing for them and for us. Finally after about two hours of walking we arrived at our apartment. Em and I were exhausted but happy.

I think we all enjoyed our brief venture outside the house, and look forward to heading back out again just as soon as we can. I only hope it will be as lovely as it was today.