Our own secret garden adventure

So I am home for 3 days this week 'cause Chris is in LA for a conference. I like to do extra special things with the kids because I know as a working mom I am often tired and busy and often we have stuff we HAVE to do instead of play (but really, I know that ALL parents and families have responsibilities and no one can play all the time, right?) So this morning we went off on a garden tour of small gardens set up along our main road. It's part of a 'green' project put on by the city and the floral expo to make some of Taipei's ugly spaces, well, less ugly. They tear down old abandoned buildings and then plant grass and flowers, etc, in the empty lot. (Ooo, like Wonderpets save the tree!) We have three of these right by our house and they are cute and beautiful and interesting. As we were walking to the second one (the one with the shopping carts at the Guting elementary school pedestrian overpass) we noticed that the lot beside it was all walled up! We liked this lot because it had a stone path, and one time we found pieces of a 'p-edallion' there. Gemma says 'p-edallion' sometimes but she means 'medallion', as in a kind of fancy treasure. One time we found a few pieces of broken blue and white tile. So we collected them and brought them home and tried to assemble it but we couldn't and even though I threw those pieces out every time we go there she wants to look for more medallion pieces, "And Mommy, DON"T throw it out this time, even if I don't play with it for a long time, OK??????" But anyway, the lot had a wall! Just like the secret garden. And after we looked by the edge of the wall and found more medallion pieces and played with caterpillars, and walked along the garden wall and climbed the overpass to look at cars go by and check out the new church, we were ready to go get food and go for a picnic. Because why not spontaneously decide to go for a picnic when you're on holidays? One the way past 'the wall' we saw the door. And it was LOCKED!!! (Because it is condemned and unsafe for people, I am assuming, or else why a wall?) But I want to play along and I remind Gemma that interestingly enough a few days ago we found a key so I ask her if it would fit? Gemma looks at the key hole, and says, No Mommy, we need a screwdriver!!! I didn't actually look but I play along and say Ok, lets go home and get it and come back and then go on our picnic. Because that is the kind of things you can do when you are on holidays: walk 10 minutes home to make a picnic, get a screwdriver and walk back to an empty lot to try a key to a magical door, then walk BACK past your house again to get to the picnic spot. (TaiDa).

Smart girl; when we got our picnic in order and screwdrivers and made it back I actually looked at the lock. And it was a cross shaped hole; thats why she knew she needed a screwdriver and not her key, because she knew her key was one flat line, not two crossing ones. But sadly, it didn't fit (good thing, people would wonder why a foreigner lady and her two kids were breaking into city property!)

Ahh, no time limits and schedule to muck up our day :) Its fun to just go with it.

Sadly, not the case for the next two days! But I'll try to schedule some spontaneity, haha!