Further evidence that kids don't need all those expensive toys

The kids and I were tagging along on one of my husband's overnight business trips just a couple of hours from home. After we checked out of the hotel, we headed outside to play until Mr. Busy's appointments were over. We found a nearby cafe for lunch, then plopped down in a nice shady spot in a grassy area next to the hotel parking lot.

This was the view as I lay in the grass with my head resting on my backpack:


Of course, it's not like I had time to write poetry or anything. I think I got to lie there like that for at least seven seconds before I had to get up and help the kids with something. But I'm not complaining. After all, they were completely content. We fed grass to their plastic dinosaurs, picked tiny flowers that were really weeds, pretended small pieces of gravel were dinosaur eggs, and after I finished my latte, the trash got put to good use as well.

The cup was a tower on which my daughter piled the tiny rocks (I think she referred to them as "babies"):


And this stegosaurus was delighted to use a nest made of 100 percent post consumer recycled cardboard:

All in all, a very enjoyable way to pass a Friday afternoon. Now, as for the drive home, which lasted nearly four hours due to miles and miles of creeping along on I-80 in horrendous traffic with three tired kids who suddenly decided life was not worth living if they were not tormenting at least one of their siblings--well, that was another, much less enjoyable, experience altogether.