A walk to town

Today we were fortunate to have slightly cooler weather and overcast, and since we were without vehicle to get us out into nature we went for a walk into town, something we do not do often, go into town that is:) It is about a 20 minutes walk from my sisters house and we walked on tree lined streets  with pretty houses and beautiful gardens. I thought I'd share a few moments from our day, and show a few of our favorite corners. The first pictures are under a bridge going into downtown, a couple of years ago a project was started to beautify the dull grey walls, and discourage random graffiti. I really love how it turned out, it depicts a lot about this region and is ever so beautifully done.

One street in town has always been our favorite, there is a really great collection of small independent stores full of colors and fun, here is also a great used book store, coffee house and a natural/organic toy/home goods store, all great fun to explore, now that we are in town anyways:)

and a must stop is my favorite place in town, the craft store, which carries all your felting, weaving, knitting, basket weaving, dying, candle making and so on supplies. I adore this store!!!

(picked up some yarn for a birthday project)

there was also a market in town today, with some very beautiful glass art, I do love markets, and although this was a very small one, it was a lovely surprise. There really is so much local original art work in this region.

We stopped in at one more store which is lovely in that everything in it is fairly traded and supports little villages from around the third world, hens the name Ten Thousand Villages. Everything is handmade and many things are made from recycled materials, and helps support the lives these indigenous people. 

Every year I enjoy the green spilling out of these window boxes when we pass by

beautiful little corners everywhere

The other day at the thrift store Keenan picked up a firefighters hat, and it has not left his head since, and today when we passed the fire station he was fortunate to be invited in to see the trucks, he was VERY excited

We stopped for a mango lassy at our favorite restaurant, The laughing seed, and headed for the sprinklers, we have never been in these before, and although the water was extremely chlorinated, and we will likely not go back for this reason, and we came completely unprepared for water play, the children had such a good time running in the water

and here we all are headed home

It felt so good to be leaving the busyness of town behind and walking once again on the quiet neighborhood streets, nothing like the country quiet granted, yet lovely in its own right.

And finally as a real treat we came across a big old oak tree just starting to drop all of its big green acorns ( I have been looking around for large acorns ), we were all really excited and picked as many as Kaleena's little shell basket could carry.  We picked up that basket at a yard sale on the walk into to town for a quarter, a lovely find.

And so ended our walk, it was a different day than usual, yet greatly enjoyed by all. Both of the children got out their gluguns the minute we arrived home to start creating with the acorns, pinecones, nuts and sticks that we had picked up on the way. Tomorrow I trust we will be back in nature:)

~A lovely evening to you~