"Where have you gone..."

Spring has come to my sleepy town, and I've been out enjoying it. My favorite part is family walks, even if Girl starts complaining about how tired she is a second after we leave the driveway. She just won't accept that she's too big for the stroller. I think it must be hard to be a 3 year-old that is as tall as the average five-year-old.
If we let her hold Mr. Giles's leash, however, she lightens up a bit. He is mostly easy to control. You get him by another dog though and he acts like the worst trained dog you ever met.
Boy doesn't much care for the walks either. He is still afraid that Giles will run around him and give him rope burn from his extendable leash like he did last year. He won't comprehend that last year the dog wasn't leash trained and this year he is. Despite Boy's fear, Giles doesn't give him, or anyone else rope burn. Anyway, it would have been difficult to get Boy, he walks on the other side of the road.
We also spent a nice day at the farm yesterday. Girl was laughing and sticking her feet in the water. Then while she was napping, Boy, Mr. Hobbitfeet, Giles, and I went for a walk down by the river. Boy is a very different kid then he was even last year. Before, he wouldn't go near the river. We spent a good portion of the time sitting on the river's edge talking about the quiet, and (because it was Boy) erosion. Then we got near the creek that runs east down to the river, and got Boy to take his shoes off. For the first time he splashed, waded and played like he has never done in his life. Had I known that all that was required to get Boy enjoying the outdoors was allergy shots and a gentle dog to get him comfortable around creatures, I would have gotten those things for him earlier.
It was great, for the first time ever, Mr. Hobbitfeet and I were ready to go long before Boy was.