Fantastic Day of Play!

We had a fabulous day at the zoo, carousel and playground today! SC had lots of firsts, smiles, laughs and fun. She was attached to KM and had a great time chasing her down all over the playground. We couldn't have asked for a better day!

Week in Review!!

Lots went on this week...

here are some pics!First day of coop - busy busy!

A day with my nieces! OR will be 2 in about 2 weeks and SC is 16 mo.
They had a great afternoon playing together

Then my brother got home from school and all h@@@ broke loose!

SC learned how to use the stool to help with the dishwasher...
she has been fascinated by it since she could crawl -
don't know why, but I am not going to complain!

CJ had Monday off due to rain, so he had time to make an awesome gate
to keep the dogs off and SC on the back porch!
This will help with my sis's fears a bit!
(not of the dogs, but of SC running around the house and out into the street!)

Since it has been so wet in the mornings we also decided to put the house on the deck for the season, this way it will dry quicker and we won't have to deal with the soaking wet grass in the morning either.

Although our trip to the zoo started off with a bang...
or it was more of a crash really...
none of us were hurt and KM and I got some great shots of the animals.
The gorillas come right up to the windows and start posing as soon as they see flashes going off!

KM took this one of the wildebeest.
I absolutely love the lighting through the trees!
When we came out of the gift shop this peacock was just strolling around.
The leopards were a bit tricky to get and I am surprised, due to the lighting that these came out at all.
I had to share this one because we never knew that the giraffe's had to spread their legs like this in order to eat from the ground.

So my thoroughly exhausting week is over and done with - nearly, of course MC will be over in a bit to take KM out to get her nails done and go for dinner (part of her bday present), so CJ and I will be going out to eat as well, I still have to go to the insurance inspectors tomorrow to have pics taken of the car, we never got to our election studies or music theory for this week so we will have to do catch up on those tomorrow, KM has her best friend sleeping over for the weekend, I have lesson plans to get done for next week,.... and about 50 other things I can think of off the top of my head - does it ever really stop? Does the "To Do" list ever really get completely finished?

Well, none the less, I will be taking it at a bit of a slower pace as we will be down a vehicle and since CJ's truck is still in the body shop from his accident last month, we will actually only have one drivable car! We haven't had this happen for years! Oh well things happen for a reason. I am most thankful that there were no injuries and we have insurance to cover everything. KM's only concern after the accident was whether we were going to still get to go to the zoo! Gotta love the minds of kids!

We are back from our WONDERFUL trip!!!

We arrived home last night and thank the heavens had a wonderful flight both ways and very little bad weather while we were there! We had some great adventures and learned some pretty cool stuff along the way!

Saturday we went to Pine Island and had a wonderful afternoon on the beach. As you can see it was a bit cloudy, but the most amazing thing happened. Gustaf was passing over the Gulf at this point and as we were sitting on the beach we looked out and saw these things that kept popping out of the water - then we realized they were dolphin fins! A pod of dolphins was swimming less than 50 ft off the shore! It was the most amazing thing! Of course we couldn't get close to them, but still - KM technically got to swim with dolphins!!! How cool is that!
You can't see them in the picture above, but they were swimming just past the landing near the signs.

KM has ALWAYS loved to make sandcastles and dig at the beach, but she decided to turn herself into a mermaid instead!

Sunday we went to the MOSI - in Tampa!

KM, my dad and his wife played a very large game of operation!

We played a few rounds of a great game show!

KM got to experience what it feels like to be in the center of a twister!
The wind speeds went up to 85mph!

We ended our day in their HUGE hands-on activity section called Kids-In-Charge!
This was the greatest kids section of a musuem I have EVER seen. It covered everything from magnets to air pressure, optical illusions to logic puzzles and everything in between!

Monday we hung around the pool area and didn't do much of anything - you just need those days sometimes!
Tuesday we were off to the Lowry Zoo for some close encounters with some amazing animals!

and lots of babies!

The meerkats were so cute!!! It seemed like their was always one watching you!

The lemurs have always been my favorites - I think because we watched soooo much Zoboomafoo when KM was little!
We fell in love with Manatees on our last visit and still think they are amazing creatures! We had the whole Sting Ray pool to ourselves! KM wouldn't touch one, but grampa did!

There were sooo many baby animals. It seemed like every turn we made there was another sign saying "New Arrivals"

All and all it was a great day at the zoo!!!

On Wed we went to do one of Grampa's favorite things - Bowling!
We are used to candelpin, but they don't even know what that is in the south,
so it was off to the big balls - Ten Pin Bowling!

Then we played in the small arcade for a bit!
Thursday was our last day in the tropics! (It was HUMID) so KM wanted to try some Shuffleboard! She did really well.
On the flight home Thursday evening I asked KM what her favorite part of the trip was -

Here response was playing the funny piano at the MOSI - turn on your sound:

Instead of playing different instruments, this keyboard played different bodily functions!

All and all it was a very good, relaxing, enjoyable trip! Just what we needed!