The weather has been really nice lately, and with my cold improving enough to move around, I thought it'd do me good to get out and enjoy the fresh air. Fumie had been watching Anthony most of the day, so I took the opportunity to take him with me to the park, him to ride his bike and me to take a nap on a bench.

I didn't bring my camera (that whole “being sick” thing has its downsides), but was able to dip into my archives for photos to illustrate today's post.

The bench I snoozed on is the one directly behind the statue in this shot, taken on a cold, rainy day seven months ago, this past April toward the end of cherry-blossom season:

Unlike when the photo was taken, today's weather was perfect to lie down on a bench, throw a hat over your eyes, and just relax. It was neither warm nor cold, just perfect. There was a pleasant breeze rustling the leaves on the big tree shading me, and (also unlike in the photo) the fountain was going full blast, so that was really pleasant as well.

Perfect.

This little plaza is just off the park where Anthony rides his bike a lot (including his first time on a bike, and his first time to ride by himself). Besides being a park where Anthony likes to play, it's full of cherry and plum trees that blossom wonderfully in the spring, and turn all kinds of wonderful colors in the fall. Looking at the nearby photos link for the shot above yields all kinds of prettiness.

Anyway, today, just like that day, Anthony passed his time by riding his bike. Since I need only the thinnest of pretexts to show pictures of my kid, here are some more of him riding his bike on that cold April morning....

He did the “daring perimeter walk” thing today, too.

My snooze today was, I'm sure, much more relaxing than this person's on that cold morning....

It was just starting to lightly sprinkle as I took that shot. Bummer.

Anthony eventually had enough riding around, so we started to head home, but when we came upon the local playground, he had to stop in. I continued to relax as he swung on the swing, a feat he's been able to do all by himself only since, well, today. (The lateness being quite shocking, since it's common to see two-year-olds swing all by themselves.)

Here he is swinging on the same swing two years ago, when he was four years old....

The look on his face was his first reaction to me sticking the camera right up close to where he was swinging, in order to get the kind of picture you see at the top of this post. He quickly had fun making silly faces as he came close. (I've done this kind of thing since, such as here.)

This is the same playground featured in my posts about two of my lenses, my Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR and my Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 (and lots more other random posts, as the nearby photos shows).

Anyway, just to show that I can get a somewhat focused shot while he's swinging, even if only by luck, here's a nice portrait of him mid-swing...

It's not perfect, photographically, but then, none of these are. I still like'em.