Monday, May 28, 2012

Three Days of Summer's Start: Part One

It's true, Memorial Day Weekend is the unofficial start to summer.  Suddenly, it seems perfectly normal to  let the baby run through the yard naked and to drink directly from the hose. Popsicles become a food group and showers are put off until after a long day outside ends instead of before a long day inside begins.  We definitely jam-packed our three-day weekend with good ole' fashioned summertime fun.

Here is the first of our three-days start to summer. (All 95 degrees of it!)

SATURDAY

The first part of our day took place at the Cincinnati Nature Center.  We had a great hike, a picnic and some time at the Nature Playscape.

This was the plan:

But this is what actually happened.  We assumed Bea would love the backpack, because Josie loved it at her age. But, something about seeing Josie traipsing around the forest led to Bea's insistence that the backpack was akin to a straight jacket. So...we spent much more time doing this:



In fact, this photo pretty much sums up everything that is our sweet girls these days. Josie is all-adventure all-the-time.  And, because Bea wants to do everything Josie does, she is all-adventure too. Little Bea has big ambitions (which can really frustrate her sometimes, poor thing).  Here she is trying with all her little might to climb like Josie.



 It really was a beautiful day. It's so nice to get out with both girls now that Bea is totally mobile.


Josie was thrilled to see real frogs!

And pollywogs!

In the epic battle, of Baby vs. Sun Hut...

 
 Baby Won!


Hey LOOK! We did it. May Mission: Accomplished (A photo of me with both girls!)
That's Josie with her pet "Roly Poly" bug



And the turtles were great!


A fun little discovery at the end of our hike:

Really, I just look at the two of them together so often and just marvel in amazement at how lucky we are!

Once home, we busted out the sprinkler and baby pool and summer was official "on!"  Really, nothing says "summer" more than a sprinkler and baby pool. Am I right?






 

Bea loves, loves, loves (and I mean loves) the water.
 
And Josie loves it, too. In fact, so do Louie & I.  Lou is on the other end of this big stream of water. How funny are they?!

This is Bea at her second favorite spot in the yard  - the roof water rain-catch barrel.  She loves filling up her bucket and watering the flowers - all day, every day.  Problem is, she loves this so much that she totally emptied the whole thing over the last week. (Sorry Mother Earth.)


All told, I think these two photos sum up Saturday the best.  I hope your holiday weekend started just as spectacularly!