Learning to Swim

MiniM.E. has two New Year's Resolutions that she's been working on for a while now.  Her first was learning to read and I'm excited to say that she is well on her way.  We are far beyond "See the fat cat." and she is able to read simple stories from her McGuffy's Primer and recognizes words she sees around.

This weekend she has been making some solid progress on swimming too! Just in time for swimming lessons to start in a week.

LittleL.G. isn't quite as big a fan of the big pool and prefers the hot tub and the kiddie pool on the deck.

MiniM.E. is so much more comfortable in the water she even went down the big slide!

The Friendly Farm

Today we all drove to the Friendly Farm for our annual visit. This was our fourth year visiting in the early summer. Last year we took Auntie Jen with us and this year we took Grumpy and Daddy for the first time. It is such a great farm that is is more than worth the hour plus drive. All the animals are friendly and accessible. Most of them are okay to hold or pick up and the girls were able to feed most of them too!

holding the baby chicks

feeding a goat

holding a goat

feeding a goat a bottle

feeding the baby calf

watering down the pig

Our First Trip to NH of the Summer

Gram came to NY to see MiniM.E.'s recital and we left with her to go back to NH Wednesday evening. It's always exciting to go to NH for the first time in the summer when the pool is open and the weather is nice and we can swim and play outside all day.  

The plan was to have the girls sleep on the way.  50% success.

Thursday we swam and played outside.

And Thursday evening after work Daddy came to meet us.

Today we went to the trampoline park in Nashua for toddler time.

Our Second Dance Recital

Last night was MiniM.E.'s second dance recital. Her first recital was a huge deal as it celebrated some big firsts for her. The second time around she was like a seasoned pro- just the tiniest bit of nerves and so excited to dance on stage! She's really grown a lot in the past 6 months!

MiniM.E. is already looking forward to dance next year.  And LittleL.G. too! She can start when she's two and is already excited about it.

Congress Park

Today was our weekly playdate with our best friends and we met downtown to do what we affectionately call, "Bucks and Ducks" - a coffee and snack at Starbucks and a walk through the park to feed the ducks.

MiniM.E. was nibbled by a duck pretty early on in our walk so today we added feeling the water in the new reflecting pool:

And playing with the water, rocks and coins in this fountain:

So enjoying just being outside in the nice summer weather!

Beach Day!

Today we didn't have anything planned so last minute I decided to take the girls up to the beach.  It wasn't very warm even though the day got up to the high seventies this afternoon, but they both seemed to have a good time digging and building.  

We all even went in the chilly water! 

After being wet and cold the girls were done with sand and water but we still had some time before we needed to go home for lunch so we explored the playground a bit.  It was nice that it wasn't too hot to play as it usually is when we come to the beach.

The Philadelphia Zoo

During our trip to PA, we took a break from Sesame Place to visit the nearby Philadelphia Zoo.

It was a really nice zoo- good size with lots of animals, but not too big that we couldn't see everything in one morning.

The girls were excited to see all the animals, but with a busy day the day before and much less sleep than usual, all the walking wore them out pretty quickly.

They were most excited about the petting zoo. We are a bit spoiled after repeated trips to Adirondack Animal Land where you can feed and pet almost all the animals. MiniM.E. really just wanted to touch something. Even in the petting zoo there was no feeding, which I think might have been a bit disappointing. At least there was brushing, which might have made up for the lack of food.

A really cool feature of the zoo (that I didn't take photos of because now that I have kids I hardly take photos of anything but them) is the zoo 360 where animals can walk right over you in caged tunnels. We had some pretty amazing views of some monkeys and a cheetah. 

The best exhibit was the tiger because we got to see him right up close and he got into the water for a swim. I think the girls' favorite part was that as he got out of the water he pooped in it. Even LittleL.G. was giggling and kept asking for "mo rah poo!" (more roar(tiger) poop!).