Ice Cream, You Scream... and Stonefield Park

We celebrated Mother's day, the sequel, with Jodi's mom today. We met up with her and Jodi's sister Ginger at the Velvet Ice Cream factory in Utica, Ohio.

Henry and Sam goofed around while we waited for everyone to show up:

 

I got all four big kids to pose by the old mill wheel:

and then we fed some ducks and possibly the largest goose I've ever seen:

Seriously, it could probably peck Sam in the belly without stretching its neck out too far.

We had lunch at the restaurant (rather expensive and mediocre), and then had our ice cream (rather cheap and wonderfully smooth, so I guess it all worked out) After lunch, we let the kids burn off some energy on the playground. Kate showed Georgia the finer points of how to swing:

The kids still had energy to burn--always--so when we got home, we headed out to Stonefield Park, which we haven't visited in almost a year. The kids climbed on the bouncy thing:

Henry showed off his hoops moves:

The kids played tag:

and then played traffic jam on the bumpy slide:

I rode my CC, now back to family duties:

I'm still not happy with the Surly in this role. The standover is too great for easy mounting--something I do a lot riding around town. Also, the short seat post violates what I think looks good in a bike. Blame this on my mountain biking background.

Another mark against the Cross Check was when I took ye Olde Trek out for an evening spin. I wanted to scout out some spots for this year's first S24O. I stopped for a picture with an old barn:

and then next to my favorite bird. This one wasn't getting away:

Anyway, the Trek just responds so nicely, it makes it hard to come back to the heavier duty CC. This is a bit strange, since last year I ended up liking my CC quite a bit more than my Rawland Nordavinden, which is conceptually much closer to the Trek. The Trek is a bit larger than the Nord, and I think that helps me like it more.