5.29.2009

Ketchup: On Sofievsky Park

You know how sometimes your favorite red condiment stubbornly refuses to come out of the bottle onto your burger or dog? You shake it, you use a knife to move it along, you shake it some more, you squeeze the heck out of it, only to get a very unsatisfactory "sphflllttt!" and a few little red splatters? So you repeat the process and then almost without warning, "PLOP!" an enormous blop, enough for two burgers and three dogs, lands on your plate and probably a bit down the front of your shirt. Yeah? Well, welcome to my blog today. And bear with me...this is Ketchup Post Two (of Four).

I'm enjoying my camera and I love my kids and we took a nice little day trip a few weekends ago to Sofievsky Park, so this post is mostly pictures of our day. The park is about a two hour drive from Kiev.

It was once the landholding of a Polish noble and he designed and built it as a gift of love for his wife, Sofia. It's over two hundred years old and parts are in various states of restoration after being passed from department to department during the Soviet era.

Many of the trees were still bare, but the paths and the opportunity to wander and climb, plus a very cool boat ride "under the earth" to the top of the park and back were wonderful for us and the boys. It was warm without being too hot - a perfect day. I would like to go back again sometime when there are more blooms and more green.


The rocks and caves were a big hit with the boys...



Charlie walked through a little crevice between a rock and a tree and came out with a cobweb sticking to his arm. He was completely perplexed because he couldn't see it or get it off, but he could definitely feel it: (His expression in the last pic cracks me up!)





When he wasn't vanquishing cobwebs, he was playing peaking games from his ride as we were trekking around...

Here are some shots from a wonderful huge hollow tree where we spent a lot of time climbing and taking pictures in the knot holes...I love my boys' eyes.


Charlie climbed the tree...
Dad climbed the tree...
Mom climbed the tree (just to reassure herself that there are still things in this world bigger than she is)...
Henry and Calvin climbed the tree...
We also took a boat ride on a canal that goes under part of the park to the higher area. The boat goes through a tunner barely wide enough for it to fit and the pilot just uses a long stick to push off the sides as we go. It was mostly black inside except for an occasional skylight cut into the thick rock walls above. I caught David looking up into one of the light holes. The people behind him were taking pictures of the light. I think it looks like a modern dance pose.
On the path by the lake at the top there was another fun tree to climb and play in...

Charlie did some exploring on foot...
Lots of bugs, cracks, dirt, and little puddles. That we must stop and look at...

By the end of the afternoon I was leaving the climbing and exploring a little more to the boys and just wandering a bit on the paved (flat) paths, taking pictures of spring. This is one of my favorites:


Calvin sulked that it was time to go "so soon" and took off down the path ahead of us...
And Charlie's grin speaks for all of us. It was a fun day.

2 comments:

Jenny P. said...

Love all the pictures! And you look awesome. :) I mean, I know I've never met you in person and that means I don't really know what you look like not pregnant... but you're pregnant with number 4... and you look great. So that deserves an awesome comment. Right?

And oh... they eyes of those boys.

megachick said...

those pictures are awesome, tracy. reminds me of the pics i took with my girls last week at the park. i had my hubs put them in the tree so i could play photog--then i lost them when my flash drive died! oh so frustrated!
it's probably a lot easier to convince boys to climb trees for pics, isn't it?