when ava comes over...

....the imaginations soar and the girls spend the entire time making up stories. Jude was their active audience and even a prop for a few "plays."

We went for a nature walk. Five minutes from our front door took us over the railroad tracks and to the creek. For the girls, those five minutes took us over the ocean, through the mountains and to the forest where there were all sorts of wild creatures to chase and berries to pick.

At first I thought they were looking at squirrels in the tree or something, but no, they were speculating why there were two airplanes in the sky rather than just one. Ava thought it was because one of the "plane flyers" needed help from the other "plane flyer" (driver's ed maybe?). Jeneva thought it was because one plane had too many people and so they needed to fill up another plane with the people that didn't fit in the first one.

Are all girls like this?

Four year old girls outfitted in "princess" attire, I've found, attracts other little girls who are out for walks, honks and waves from the train conductors, and "oh's and ah's" from the folks sitting outside of the retirement home that we walk past.