mcdonalds

grandpa was an integral part of ava's first ice cream experience, so i thought he might like to come along for another great first . . . mcdonald's!

okay, so, if you grew up in say . . . thunder bay . . . then mcdonalds sounds like a weird thing to get excited about and a weird thing to not do until you are two years and ten months old. but (again, kinda like the ice cream shop) we don't really have very many of them around here. to my knowledge there are no mcdonalds in san francisco, other than a couple of really sleazy ones downtown. (strangely, our neighborhood does have a miniature burger king . . . but that's a whole different story.)

since it was ava's first mcdonalds experience, i wanted to make sure it was a fun one. we took her to a mcdonalds with a gigantic plastic playground inside. ava was quite pleased with the whole experience. she declared "this is a wonderful table. it has dots like my dice". and, she ate her french fries and chicken nuggets (couldn't convince her to try the dipping sauce though). and, surprisingly, she really enjoyed the playground. the playground was a bit more than i was anticipating - consisting mostly of a fast maze of plastic tunnels that the children climb up inside and then slide down. the catch is - you can't see the kids anywhere inside this maze - and adults aren't allowed to go in. after a good ten minutes of watching the other kids disappear inside the tunnel, ava actually decided to give it a whirl too. (and of course, didn't want to stop after that!)