Fulfilling dreams

The beautiful thing about our little girl being two-and-a-half, is that we can still fulfill her dreams.  The two things she has talked the most about recently are: 1) wanting to climb a tree and 2) wanting to ride a bus.  We were able to randomly fulfill the tree-climbing dream as there is a tree with tons of gorgeous low-lying branches sprawled out at the park where we had our family photos taken.  Anni was in awe.  I love that you can see that written clearly on her face.  

Photo by the lovely, lovely Jenny Hanlon of Jenny Hanlon Photography.

 I love it!  After riding the high of that little dream fulfillment, we realized that we could totally take care of the bus one, as well.  Because we live right by a park n' ride, she sees buses every time we hop in the car.  We went through our bus options and decided that the shuttle up and down 16th St. Mall was our best bet.  We told her we were going to go downtown and ride the bus on Saturday (it was nice to have a response during the daily repetitions of "I want to ride the bus!") 

And so, Saturday morning, we found a parking spot downtown, took a little walk to the beginning of the line and hopped on.  At first, and for a good portion of the ride (we rode it to the end of the line, hopped on another bus and rode it back to a sandwich shop for lunch), Anni was quiet, her eyes big and taking in all of the people getting on and off.  I had a brief moment of, "Does she like it?!" panic, and then remembered, this is my Anni, my little girl who soaks experiences in and lets them steep. 

She loved it!  Her favorite part was when the driver would announce the next stop... I think because she loves that part on Dinosaur Train, but, either way, she's still announcing stops a few days later.

I'm so thankful that we get a few years where it's easy to make all her dreams come true.  Soon enough, her wishes and dreams will be more and more out of our reach.  Speaking of which, her next dream is, "I want to hold the moon."