A Trip to Wolfe's Pond Park

This morning I woke up at 8am. Today of all days, Ari decided to sleep in! Unfortunately, we had to be in Manhattan by 10am to catch a bus. We were scheduled to go on an exciting trip today to Wolfe's Pond Park, a free city park in Staten Island. I sluggishly made my way to the kitchen and made some coffee while Ari watched Blue's Clues.

By the time we made it out the door, it was 9:30am, clearly not enough time to get to the city and make the bus. I decided I'd better drive if I wanted a shot at making it there on time. Unfortunately, three blocks into driving and traffic was not agreeing with me. I called the director of the school and let her know that I was not going to make it to the bus. Instead, I would drive to Staten Island and meet the group there.

She said that was fine, but remarked that she had been waiting for us to arrive so the bus could leave. Keep in mind the last time these moms saw me I broke down crying in front of them because Ari was behaving so badly. Now I'm holding up the bus trip. Great!

It all worked out. Thankfully. I made it to the park in time to meet the Park Rangers!

Ari listened intently as the Rangers talked to us about the hike we were about to take around the park.

Then he was given a "nature badge."

As he was listening he got so comfortable that he held another mom's hand.

And then he realized that it wasn't my hand and dropped it quickly.

The Rangers showed us all kinds of fun things. Check this out. This is a seed:

Here it is up close:


This seed grows into this tree:

But the most exciting part of the trip was our visit to the beach. Yes, you read right, Wolfe's Pond Park has a beach.
Okay, so the water was brown. But what do you expect? This is New York City! It was so hot, I could have been swimming in toxic waste and I wouldn't have cared.


Now you may be wondering: Is that a maternity bathing suit? No it's not! It's a plus sized swim suit purchased from Walmart in Texas.

The beach was great, and the water was warm! Ari loved it too.

After we left Wolfe's Pond Park, we started to drive home and this happened:

I was still really hot, even though the air conditioning in the car was on full blast. After all, I am pregnant. So I called my friend and Staten Island native, Donna to advise me of the closest ice cream place. She said:
"You must go to Ralph's Ices! It's the best!"
So I did.

And I got this:

It was amazing.

In the words of Richard Scarry from his masterpiece Cars and Trucks and Things That Go,
"My hasn't it been an exciting day?"

For more on Wolfe's Pond Park click here