June 16: Spontaneously fabulous family trip to Cline and Traintown

By June, Agnieszka was back full time at work and weekends together as a family were again becoming more rare and precious.  On June 16, we decided to take a spontaneous trip to Cline winery in Sonoma (only 45 minutes away!) and visit the nearby Train Town kids amusement park.  It was a wonderful trip!

At Cline, while Agnieszka and Daniel wine tasted, Auggie got to feeds dozens of large koi fish at the pond.  The feeding is a spectacle (see next post) as the koi are quite vigorous in their pursuit of lunch.  The fish food in sold out of a dispenser that takes quarters and Auggie had his first lesson about the value of money because of this.  He was so sad when we ran out of quarters that he promised he would save "all the quarters in the world" for next time we come back to Cline to feed the fish. ("Can we come back tomorrow with Maya and Colin and Evan and Alex?"

We had a lovely lunch of fresh bread and yummy cheese in the Cline garden, while Auggie ran between different ponds trying to use the fish food he found on the floor under the dispenser to feed the turtles. Meanwhile, Ella enjoyed watching the swaying trees and her very happy family.

After Cline, we explored Train Town, which is an old amusement park for little kids. Not only does it have a train, which stops at a minature town with all the important small town buildings (including th "jail"), but also a rollercoaster and some other rides.  Auggie braved both the small ferris wheel (Agnieszka was still very nervous on it) and the rollercoaster ("can we do it again?")  We left happy and tired, with Auggie only wanting to know one thing: "When can we come back here with Maya and Colin and Alex and Evan?"

The day ended with "movie night" at the house. After careful consideration, we choose Wall-E, as Auggie tends to get too scared in most G rated movies.  As soon as Wall-E took off in pursuit of Eve, however, the danger was too much for Auggie to bear.  Fortunately, there's always Paw Patrol.  May Auggie's innocence and sweetness last as long as possible.