Making a splash!

From the time she could walk, Alison has loved mud puddles. She's jumped in them since she first discovered the fun of splashing.

Lately, she's pushed it up a notch. It's been rainy here and every night this week, we've gone out on the bikes. Since the first puddle formed, she's thrown all her fears about falling off her fancy, new 2-wheeler and just flown through the water.

It rained again tonight and I was pretty sure the bike would have to stay parked. Jeff had planned to play softball, but even his crazy gang of crazy players called it off about 7:30. At 8:30, it finally seemed clear and Ali looked up from the lap top to ask if we could go out.

I initially demurred. It's too close to bedtime, etc... but then again, she's only going to actually want me to go with her on the bike for a few more years. (if I'm lucky.) So we collected Jeff and went out for a little while.

She zoomed through more mud than I had really expected and she even had a wipe-out trying to turn around. She was more scare than hurt and by the time she'd found another long puddle, she'd forgotten how much her hands had been hurt in the fall.

It was dark when we got back, and she missed her bed time by quite a lot. But it was worth it.

Here's how she ended up. I used the flash on my camera, which makes it a little fuzzy and lighter than it actually was.

We might be bad parents, and she'll likely never wear those clothes again, but it was fun. And it's summer, for goodness sake!