Grandma and Grandpa come to visit

I was able to talk my parents into coming for a visit to over Labor day. The timing was right and they were excited to see where we lived, so here they came...day one they were one their own and took the kids to the Children's museum. The next day we all went to the zoo. We loved it so much that we went back 2 days later. The zoo here is so big that we could go for 2 more days and still not see any of the same exhibits.

The second time we went we got to go inside the jungle.

Here Tori, my mom and I are crossing the rickety bridge

Abby, prior to her visit to the car for the remainder of the trip...

The beautiful view from inside the jungle.

Tori enjoying all the attention as she eats her cookie next to the octopus.

And outside the butterfly exhibit...
Do they look alike??
Watching the tigers,with Grandma...her favorite thing at the zoo by far!

Enjoying the view from atop Grandpa.

Overall a good day, Tori enjoyed the zoo and Abby enjoyed the car...well at least a good day for Tori, I just felt bad Chris had to go with Abby.

Spirt Week

The girls had spirit week at school this week, this had to by favorite day, it was crazy hair day. So I let them dress themselves(not to abnormal) and then did their hair.

How could you not love 3 weirdly placed ponies?

What in the world is that??

When Abby woke up on Monday she had all these awful spots/rash on her body.

We didn't know what it was, so after a couple days we took her to the Doctor who said it was hives, a reaction to something she ate.

A couple days later she has another reaction...the culprit...peanuts. So she is off peanuts or peanut products for the duration...lucky us!

JDRF Walk

Today the family, including the dog, headed down to the river for a charity walk for JDRF. Thanks to all those who donated for the cause!

On the way Abby and Tori found 2 friends from day care and walked the whole way with them.

Tori enjoying some of the water present, and there was a lot there!!

After the walk the girls each got to do face painting, Tori of course chose an alligator...

Abby's choice was a ladybug!

It was a nice walk and made even nicer by the new jogging stroller that I finally broken down and purchased off of Craig's list!

FHE Treat

Ice scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!!!

Trip to Navoo for the pagent

While looking at the weekly newsletter from Church we realized that we only had 2 more weeks to get to the Navoo Pageant. Now that we are so close we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go, so we quickly made hotel reservations and Chris picked us up on Friday night and we were off like a bunch of turtles. It took us 2 hours to make it 60 miles. Of course we had to stop and eat, and potty breaks. So we determined that we had to move it along a little faster after that. Needless to say we did arrive in Illinois before midnight. We settled in for the night and early the next morning we got up, had a yummy breakfast and headed to the pool!

Later that morning we headed to Navoo. The first place we stopped was a place where the kids could dress up and do pioneer activities. Tori was into it for about 4 minutes, I was lucky enough to catch her in action.

On the other hand, Abby was all about the dress up and even changed clothes about 3 times during the time we were there. We pulled out lunch while we were there and enjoyed that in between chores.

Tori is all about moving things around so she started with moving wood chips from outside to a bucket inside a little home...

Then she moved onto a larger bucket outside...

Then she enlisted her sister and a new friend with he same love of transferring wood chips...
After that hard work, we went into town to check out all that they had to offer, Abby of course decided to take some pictures, not so bad here of her sister...

The next one didn't go so well, or maybe Dad is too tall??
Next it was on for frozen custard by the nice ladies in the shop...

Here is a closer look at the yummy treat...

After that we went down to the brick yard, because no visit to Navoo is complete without your own brick! Tori sporting her brick here...

Abby of course needed to climb up on the bricks to show off her brick!

...and of course the family picture!

Then we had the oxen take us on a short ride, wow those pioneer's had a rough time of it. It was very slow and very bumpy

We took a drive so that some kids could take a little nap and then came back for the pre-pageant activities. Abby started by learning to do an old Scottish dance...

then Tori joined in, they both did very well, it must be their fathers genes!

Finally it was time for the pageant, Tori was really excited, Abby not so much, she kept asking me, is it over yet...how much longer...
It was really a great show. I ran into a family that was down here for 2 weeks doing the pageant, and they said that the main cast did it for the whole time, but everyone else came for 2 weeks and participated. There were babies, young kids and of course adults. If you didn't know that they were a moving part, you would never know.

At the very end, it was so cool, they sang their last song and the temple lit up behind them. There are about 300 cast members in all and quit the production.

By the end, Abby had perked up a bit and wasn't crying any longer.

The next day we drove back home, tired, spent, but happy. What a fun little family get away! We plan on doing this again next year!

Abby's first field trip with her new preschool!

Abby had her first field trip with her new friends today and where did they go....the zoo of course! She had a blast and playing with some of the exhibits...
Here are all the kids that were in her group!

Dad was able to go...at first I told her that Dad was going and she asked if he could please be in a different group! She did change her mind once the big day came!

And what field trip is complete without a little funny face?

...and the best part about being a teacher...you can act like one of the kids and no one looks at you funny! Miss Pascale is one of her favorite teachers and she was excited she was in her group!