May

To the girls utter joy, the dandelions have started to bloom.  The other day the girls gathered a whole bouquet of dandelion puffs, climbed into the car and blew!  They were thrilled with the ensuing floating seed wonderland for about 2 minutes until allergies started triggering.  

Last week was Heidi's 4 year checkup.  It was one of our non rainy sunny days and so we enjoyed the drive there.  We picked a pediatrician who lives a good 15 minutes out of the city and I love the drive and the country feel of it.  On the way there was a detour and we attempted the steepest road I've ever seen!  The girls were panicked and I kept telling myself that if the paving truck was able to make it, then I could make it.  After the check up and shots we visited a park.

Squaw Valley Park is one of our favorites, and the weather was perfect for a park day.

The girls ran around making friends, playing with dogs and digging in the volleyball court while i pushed Quinn in the swing and fed her snacks.  We met up with some friends and then it became an elaborate game of pretend and saving princes and living in underwater castles.

I had promised the girls a trip to the zoo to see their pets on Wednesday, and then it rained and rained and rained.  The girls gathered their rain boots and stomped through the house knocking loose the mud caked on from the last puddle jumping adventure.  Quinn followed them around cleaning up after them and eating up the bits of dirt.

The rain let up after the morning and so we went anyway.

I wish I would have taken a picture with this sign each time we came.  They were doing landscaping and the whole place looked so different!

Quinn was a trooper as always.   She enjoys a good stroller ride.

The Mother and baby tiger were out and kept playing in way that made it seem like they were fighting. And I kept missing the picture.

Heidi got a camera for her birthday, just like Alex's, and has been taking pictures of everything.  Watching them take pictures of the animals was a pretty happy moment for me.

They rushed past the tigers after only a few minutes  (I could have watched all day) to see what was going on with the flamingos!

They were squawking up a storm and so we stood and watched for 20 minutes.

These 5 kept fighting each other for that piece of prime real estate.

Mom and baby Rhino were out together, this was also very exciting for me.

The girls were more interested in the termite hill.  I got to watch the Rhino's, they climbed the rocks, everyone won.

We made some nature notebooks a few weeks ago and put together an adventure backpack with some identification books the girls got for their birthdays, bug nets, specimen jars etc.  Alex was adamant about getting a picture of this bug so we could identify it later.  Looks like I need a macro lens. (I'm pretty sure this is a soldier beetle, a good guy like ladybugs.)

Heidi wanted to measure up to the elephant.

The girls kept switching in between sandals and rain boots as they changed from running to puddle stomping.

These girls are pretty good friends.  When they are feeling sweet they will take care of each other, and when they are ornery they torment each other.  I'm glad they have one another though because no matter where we go they will always have a friend.

The Zoo adventure they were on this day was called -The Mystery of the missing Polar Bear!  They were full into it for a good hour.  Then we found the polar bear and needed another adventure.  We decided to follow clues to find the minisub (car).

These were their siblings who were frozen.  We had a moment of princess play and there was of course some "let it go" singing while they tried to free the poor captives.

The baby sealion will chase a pinecone if it is rolled back and forth on the cement bench in front of the underwater window.  When we go we like show everyone the trick and see their eyes light up.  Quinn thought it was hilarious!

We ended the day with a visit to see Heidi's pet camel.