The tree incident.

Y'all, we made it to the very. last. day. We made it through three countries, six airports, a gazillion train stations, a million sidewalks and over thousands of cobblestones with only minor injuries. No one got sick, or bled or needed to see a doctor. We were feeling overconfident.

So when we rode through the park that afternoon and saw this pretty tree, we thought "Hey, what a pretty picture that would be - the girls in the tree, with the water and the buildings in the background." So we got them perched up there, several feet above the ground, and Auntie and Mommy held on for a minute while Daddy got the shot set.
And then we let go to go stand behind Daddy and jump up and down and make funny faces so that the girls would look at us and smile. And then something happened, We think Lily leaned back a little and thought she was falling. (She wasn't.) But then she overcompensated and leaned forward, which saved her from forward, out of the tree. The only trouble was that she had her arm around Rory. So she basically pushed Rory out of the tree, and Rory landed pretty much face first in the dirt. And then, without Rory there to steady her, Lily fell on top of her. While all three adults stood there and watched. *Parents of the year here, folks.*

So we ran over sure that someone had a broken bone, or several knocked out teeth. And when I picked Rory up and looked into her mouth (which was easy - it was open so that she could scream), all I saw was a ton of dark liquid oozing out. I panicked because I thought it was blood. But no, it was just dirt. The poor kid had a mouthful of dirt. And she ended up with a fat lip and a scraped and bruised chip. But that was it. And even after all that, she only cried for a minute or two. Mostly she just told us repeatedly that "I don't wanna get back in dat twee!"

(The evidence of our bad decisions.)

Lily was scared, but uninjured. And a few minutes later, while Rory was still whimpering, Lily asked to get back in the tree and try the picture again. But she wanted Auntie to hold her foot. So she wouldn't fall again.
Safety first!
Not our best parenting moment ever. Although that first picture did come out pretty nice. (I'm kidding. Mostly.)

Four hours later, after a nap and all kinds of other activities, in a totally different location with no trees in sight, I mentioned that we were going to take a picture and Rory announced, "Not in dat twee where Auntie an' Lily fell. An' I fell. An' bumped my lip. An' bumped my face. An' bumped my knee. An' my chin."

Fair enough. No more trees.