Dining Al Fresco

The weather lately has been lovely. Temperatures are in the low 70’s and toasty in the sun. Starting late last week, we began our annual ritual of Dining al fresco. It all started last Thursday night when the girls and I agreed with my babysitter’s recommendation to dine outside.

On Thursday nights Little Zo Peep selects the menu. Yesterday she picked “breakfast for dinner.” Our menu included her special recipe scrambled eggs (eggs, herbs, garlic, onions, chopped up link sausage, and cheddar cheese) plus some frozen waffles (no time to make them from scratch) and a nice fruit salad.

My babysitter went home shortly after I came home (not feeling well), so the 3 of us prepared dinner and carried it outside to enjoy it on the back patio.

What a lovely evening. The birds sang to us as we ate – cardinals, wrens, sparrows and mourning doves. Planes and helicopters buzz above – fascinating Libby Doodle Doo every time one passed. The flowers and blooming trees looked lovely and the daffs added a little hint of perfume to the air.

I realized that this was probably the first time ever that Libby Doodle Doo ate outside. I ran in and grabbed my camera to take some shots of the occasion. You know as adoptive parents we can always regret the many “first” that we missed with our children, but it is just as important to cherish all the “first” we do get to share with them.

Here are some shots of the Doodle and Peep doing their silly “head to the side” pose. Miss Doodle started doing this a few weeks ago. It is now very popular and Miss Peep and I do it back to her every chance we get.

After dinner, I took the camera out front to take some garden photos. A woman who helps me with the gardens had just come on Wednesday and did a lot of the Spring cleanup – everything was looking very nice. But nothing in the garden was quite as attractive as my two girls waiting patiently for me on our very, very small patch of grass.

As I was taking photos, a neighbor stopped over to see Libby Doodle Doo and Zo Peep. She offered to take a photo of the three of us. Here it is -- the photographic confirmation of my family spending our first of many lovely spring/summer evenings together: