Zoo Trip

Last weekend we went to the zoo - it had been a while and the weather had been great during the week, so I was thinking it would be a nice cool visit.  Well, it was not so cool, but was a nice visit.  Biggest accomplishment was that we went through the special dinosaur exhibit and neither of the girls ran out in fear of the dinosaurs!  There were some that were "scary" and there was a request or 2 to hurry past, but I was very proud. 

 We had to ride the carousel of course.  And as in the past, Ella was SO excited until we got on the thing and then she wouldn't sit on the ride, so Michael held her the whole time.  I have yet to figure out what exactly she is afraid of!

 So, I'm finally getting natural smiles out of Addy, as evidenced in the pic above.  Getting Ella to sit still and look at the camera is still a challenge - she is still super cute though!

 Probably my favorite pic of the day.  Addy did a good job of getting Ella to crawl through the tunnel.  

 And here are the dinosaurs!  We were mostly able to casually stroll through.  The only part that did not get rave reviews from Ella was the dinosaur at the very end that would randomly spit water on you.  You don't realize what it is going to do until you get squirted and I think that it hit Ella right in the face.  The rest of us kind of enjoyed it considering how hot it was, it was kind of refreshing.  

The t-rex was not the most popular, but I made Addy take a pic with me to show how brave she was - you can kind of see the skepticism in her face though!

Labor Day Beach Weekend

The official last beach weekend of the summer for us, and what a fun weekend it was!  Quite a memorable weekend, with a great visit from Granny, Jean and Tom to celebrate a few things...1) the 40th anniversary of the beach house being in the Pfluger/Kelly/Denson/Wolf family, 2) Jean's birthday, and 3) what would have been Gramps' 100th birthday.   The weather was great, beach was clean, no chores, just relaxing and fun. 

 Addy helping Aunt Jean blow out her candles.  We looked at the pics on the wall of past beach birthday celebrations and determined that Jean had the same cake in front of her in pretty much all of the pictures.  Granny's chocolate cake is legendary!  And still as tasty as ever I might add!

 4 generations of beach girls

 The water looks really brown in this pic, but it was really nice.  Not as hot as you'd expect, seeing as it was end of August.  No seaweed.  I think that the surf was a bit rough because of the hurricane that was going on over in Louisiana, but Ella probably spent more time in the water this trip than any other.  We had a fun time just sitting in water.  

This pic represents what was likely the highlight of the trip for Addison.  We wake up Saturday AM and Addy goes to put her suit on and we realize that someone (me) forgot to pack a swimsuit for her.  Feeling like a terrible mom at that point, she was guaranteed to get whatever swimsuit she wanted from the Big Store.  So, that is how the bikini came about.  I have zero objections to bikinis, but they always are so big on her or generally don't fit well that I tend to steer her away from them.  This was literally the only swimsuit at the store that fit her though, so bikini it is! She is lookin' pretty cute I might add.  She actually asked me to take this pic so that her grandparents could see it! 

Certainly hoping to make it to the beach over the fall/winter, but the way the weekends are filling up with birthday parties and other activities, not sure when it will be!