Strawberry-picking!

We lucked out this week with a nice day for strawberry picking! Last year, we missed the prime window for this activity and by the time we made it out there, they were mostly gone; we couldn't even find enough to fill their smallest container, so we were very happy that we found some this year. As soon as a nice (and not totally scheduled!) day presented itself, we picked up Meemaw Diana and headed to the strawberry farm!

Such hams!

Sweet strawberry-pickers.

 Nicholas was a picking machine! He was constantly running over to the basket with a handful!

Such a silly group! We had a really good time and have had some very yummy strawberries this week as well as added some to our freezer :)

Happy Birthday, Kristen!

Today is our sweet Kristen's birthday! I can not believe it has been nineteen years since that wonderful day! Kristen, you are a sweet, smart, funny girl and I'm so proud to be your mom :)

We've missed celebrating your special day with you and we can't wait to see you!

The Rest of the Day

I'm having so much fun looking at these zoo pictures! It was really a fun day (in spite of the crowds)! Jenny, thank you for inviting  us! Angi, I'm glad you didn't turn around in the parking lot and go home!

After we saw those amazing polar bears, we headed to find a good place for lunch. We all packed so at least we didn't have to stand in those lines! We found a nice shadey spot with a little playground:

And on the way there we saw some cute ducks and a big, fat frog!

Then it was off to see the manatee where I didn't get ANY pictures because I was too busy trying to find Nicholas! GAH!

Climbing the walls...literally ;)

From there, we went to the reptile house. No matter how often we go to the zoo, we must go to the reptile house. Luckily, our friends feel the same :)

There was a snake to touch.

Brandon and Megan touched it too but I got no pictures of that because right after this my battery died :( Then I had to literally drag our kids out of that place! I think they could stay there all day long. Maybe this fall :)

The Evolution of a Group Photo

As we were heading in to see the new manatees, Angi spotted another place for a group photo of all our kids (stroller boys included this time!). I very quickly snapped four pictures consecutively, knowing that my kids don't always smile for pictures (or keep their eyes open for that matter!) and this is what I got....

Jenny, Colin and Emma are cracking me up! I love Megan's bit of sass there in that last picture too! The big kids look like they were taking it all in stride, but you just know Chas was whispering something hilarious to Adrienne in that second picture :) They all had that "If you tell me to smile one more time..." look. So funny!

The Zoo in June

Our fantastic zoo has a new exhibit...polar bears! We've been planning to get up there to see them, but time, as usual, has not been my friend ;) So when my friend, Jenny, invited us to go along with her gang yesterday, we were excited!

Let me just say, I don't think I've ever seen the zoo that busy! The crowds were insane! Of course, the worst was by the new polar bears, but, really, it was just a mass of people everywhere we went! And even though our kids go to the zoo often and even though we see the same animals every time (GAH!) they  have trouble walking by without lingering and reading the information and watching to see what that animal will do. I found myself scooting them along many times saying, "We'll come back when it's not so busy. Keep moving!". I'm not used to sharing our zoo with that many people!

Anyway, since I took a massive amount of pictures of the polar bears, I thought I'd break this post up a bit. ;) They were really fun to watch! Totally entertaining! (I can't wait to head back this fall when we can sit and watch them!)

We took the ramp to the underwater viewing first. It looked the least crowded. We were wrong, of course ;) But! It was worth it!

This picture shows a tiny bit of what the crowds were like. Everyone just crammed in!

It was a bit weird to watch her swim over-head like that!

She lunged for some fish and the crowd gasped! It was so funny!

Then we went up top to see whatever we could see from there:

There was a zoo employee who happened to wander over to us as we were watching and told us that they are twin sisters. The one in the water, Anana, is more of an entertainer. She loves swimming around and people-watching ;) The other one, Aurora, is a bit more reserved, but she ended up putting on quite a show for us too! As we were watching her, she stood up and started walking backwards. The zoo lady said she likes to backup like that before she dives into the water so at that point, all eyes were on her! She took off running up to the edge, then she stopped! She did that like seven or eight times, teasing us! Then, she finally dove in:

Yay! It was fun to see.

About that time, our friends showed up and we got to watch them a bit longer before we wandered off in search of an area to have our lunch that wasn't so crowed! Before we left, Angi organized a group shot:

There's a couple of stroller-bound little guys missing, but with those crowds, they were not released!

A House for Fairies

Yesterday, Megan and I built a fairy house. I've seen many books about this including Fairy Houses that we read last year, but this one was inspired by:

What a cute story! It's by Cynthia Rylant who also wrote the Henry and Mudge books and Mr. Putter and Tabby books (some of our favorites). This is what we came up with:

We made a wall from twigs, used small seashells and rose pedals for the chairs, small pine cones for trees, some bark for the table, and a rose for a lamp. We had so much fun! We might be ready to try the slightly more complex ones in the Fairy House next time!

Turning Fear into Fun

Last night, we had tornado warnings...ugh. I hate storms and it seems as though I've passed that on to a few of our kids. The second the sirens go off we head to the basement turning on the radio for updates. Thankfully, the worst part didn't last long, but we came back upstairs to find a nasty thunderstorm. At that point, I knew it would be a rough night around here. Some of us don't sleep well when the wind is blowing and the thunder and lightning being crazy, so we made the best of it:

Sleep over night! (Excuse the poor quality photo. I'm still learning my new camera ...might help if I read the instructions ;) ) They had a ball and hardly noticed the noise going on outside ;)

Kristen was at school during all that. Thank God for texting as I was able to keep in touch with her and know she was safe :)