Finally Out of the House!

After over a week of being in the house... we finally got to enjoy a whole day out as a family. We couldn't have asked for a better day to do it - it was beautiful on Saturday! Tom & I have both had head colds, then there was the ice storm that gave us two bad weather days from school, then Mae's cold turned into a sinus infection w/ a double ear infection & three days of fever. None of those were major things, but they added up to lots of time in the house so we were thankful for our day out.

We had a picnic lunch at the botanical garden. Actually, the brave squirrels ate most of the girls lunch - you can see one little guy just a couple of feet from Anna in the picture below. She named her new friends Daisy & Herman. You can see in the video below that Mae is a little too rambunctious to get very close to even the tamest of wild animals.


The girls were restless after a week inside, so most of my pics are of the back of them as they ran around like crazy chickens.

Anna likes to snag my camera & take her own pictures - I love seeing things from her perspective. This is random, but this week Mae was pretending to take pics as well. She pointed the camera at me & told me to say cheese. After that she went on for about five minutes saying, "ok, one more. Now last one. One more time. Last more time. One more last time." You get the point. You think she's heard those things a few times?

After our picnic we rode the mini train. This is always a favorite of ours - cheap, fun, just the right length (about 40 min), & a stop for popcorn. Perfect! As we rode I had lots of time to just soak in being with the girls & my sweet husband. They are at such fun ages - old enough to enjoy outings without bottles, pacis, diaper bags, etc... but still young enough to say the cutest things & be so easily entertained. We feel so blessed!

We had added entertainment on our ride this time. Some guys were taking a horseback ride in the park, and one got shrugged off as he tried to get into the saddle. The horse ran for a long time parallel to the train as joggers, bicyclists, and policemen all tried to stop him. Thankfully they got him turned around before he crossed a major road.