Back yard

This last weekend our internet went out, forcing us to enjoy each other's company and explore entertainment options other than watching Peppa Pig videos. Tamsen had recently picked up some bocce balls at a moving sale, and since Edie had seen them in the garage and was literally unable to stop talking about them, we got them out and gave them a try.

Edie had, well, a ball.

We explained the rules of the game to her, and that was all good and well, but she really just wanted to throw the balls around and declare herself the winner, no matter where her balls landed. She was probably playing a different game than we were.

She did her best to play with Marty, too. She's an explainer, just like her dad, so she relished getting to tell Marty how to play the game and how to throw his balls.

But if Edie was playing a different game than the rest of us, Marty was even a step further removed. He just wanted to waddle around the yard carrying his balls. He did a good job of it, too!

After a while of that, he put them down and started wandering around the yard in search of other things to play with. He found the statue of the Virgin Mary that the previous owners of our house left behind and did his best to make friends.

After that, he tried to ride Edie's tricycle down the porch stairs until Tamsen stopped him and let him wander around the yard.

His legs are too short to really do anything with the pedals, but he's not really that bothered around "riding" the tricycle. He just wants to sit on it, scoot around, and maybe stick the handlebars in his mouth. You know, regular stuff.

A few days earlier, Edie got a kite from Amazon that she had been begging for, and since the wind had picked up a little, we went outside to test it out. We have a lot of tall trees surrounding the yard, so it was tricky getting the kite to stay up until we could get it up over the trees, at which point it was ready to fly to the moon.

It was Edie's first time really properly flying a kite, and she was hooked.

Let me tell you, that kite was high.

Lucky for her, I really like to fly kites, too, so I'm sure we'll have plenty more chances to test it out over the summer.

Spending this much time in the back yard made us stop and think what it is that we spend so much time doing when we have the internet up. Is it really worth watching one more video or spending a few more minutes aimlessly browsing Twitter when we could be creating memories like this? Yes, of course it's worth it. YouTube isn't going to watch itself, people.