The View, the Mud, and the Purple Bumbo

So have I told you what a beautiful place Washington is? Have I done my part creating jealousy in everyone that hasn't been able to enjoy the splendor of the Evergreen State?

I'll add to that by showing a little more of our adventures that happened just five minutes from my family's backyard.

Do you see this view? It's gorgeous. To get something like this you would have to trek pretty far in Utah. This is what everything looks like in our part of Washington. 

I'm serious.

From our house you can walk to a creek, a lake, and a river. The library parking lot looks more like campground parking. And, during the right season you can pick large blackberries off bushes on the side of any given road. (I know this too well due to past years when, at least once a week, we were each handed a bucket and instructed we couldn't come home until our bucket was full of blackberries. The fun of blackberry picking runs out when you've picked all the easy ones up front, and are left stretching for berries hiding through the thorns and spider-webs in the back.)

After boredom struck one afternoon, we decided to head to the river to make good use of the beautiful surroundings to let the kids play.

It was chillier than we thought and the water was a little too cold for the girls, but there was plenty of sand to keep them entertained.

And enough mud for this little dude to introduce himself to a new food-group.

I thought he might enjoy digging his toes and fingers in the dirt. Little did I know, the glee he would have in sneaking tastes of mud. You can just see the sparkle in his eyes telling of trouble.

Ammon eventually was getting a few too many mouthfuls of dirt and we had to stint his access.

He still enjoyed wriggling his toes in the cool sand and watching the others splash about. Luckily, with the purple bumbo he could do just that.

Let me just say, bumbo's are amazing.

I started out our trip with no bumbo and was missing it sorely. After whining for quite a bit about missing the bumbo, my mom and grandma tried to figure out why I needed it so badly. I tried explaining how this little seat works and it's convenience, but they were skeptical. I was forced to endure comments such as, "You mean it doesn't do anything, it just sits there?" and, "I think it's just another thing they've brain-washed moms into believing they have to have it."

Finally, I became desperate enough to have my mom ask her friends on Facebook for a bumbo loan and we got to borrow that purple beauty.

Color aside, it was heavenly to finally have something to plop Ammon in again, instead of trying to hold his twenty pounds and get stuff done at the same. Both my mom and grandma ended up admitting how wonderful that little chair is.  My grandma even said, "I'm jealous. Why couldn't they have something like that when I was raising babies?" And we all gave a knowing laugh when my aunt saw Ammon in the bumbo and exclaimed, "Well that's a neat chair!"

Anyways, enough unpaid, unasked-for advertising.

What I am trying to say is, one fine afternoon, that purple Bumbo made it convenient for Ammon to access the mud while we enjoyed the view :)