Field Trips

It was a busy week. The girls had lots of activities at school, including a visit from "the Bug Guy" which Caroline also got to participate in. Apparently both of our duahgters volunteered to have the (non-poisonous) tarantula crawl on their shirts. I would have said a quick "no thank you" to that offer. Katie also had a field trip to a farm and then there was a carnival at school on Thursday. This first photo is of the girls checking out all of their treasures.

On Saturday morning we took the girls to have their pictures taken. We had the first appointment of the day and a terrific photographer, but the batteries in the flash were dead and after just a few snaps, found ourselves killing time in the photo studio while someone ran to purchase batteries. Ugh! Why does this always happen? We lost all of our momentum . . . and Caroline's coopoeration. On the bright side, the girls enjoyed playing with the props (such as this bath tub) while we were waiting. I picked the photos, but I need to see them again before I can make a good assessment. It's always tough to get two genuine smiles. Out of the hundreds of photos I have taken in the last year, I can think of three where they both had great smiles.

Saturday night we had a babysitter and Jamie and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been 11 years! We had a nice evening out and enjoyed a kid-free dinner.

On Sunday we went to the Cincinnati Zoo. They have made a lot of improvements and we all enjoyed it. Transportation was our main challenge as Caroline doesn't want to ride in the stroller (while Katie was "exhausted" and wanted a ride!) but also didn't want to hold hands.

The girls especially enjoyed the sea lions that you can see from up above or below. I think we ran up and down the stairs about 4 times to catch him wherever he was.

We also planned to do more of the scheduled activities and shows, including the opportunity to feed the giraffes. Both girls enjoyed that! It was very funny to see them looking eye to eye with the giraffes.

After that we went to the Cheetah Encounter where they do a demonstration of how fast the cheetah can run. I thought it was very cool, but Caroline was disgruntled at the time because she wanted to stand in the front, which wasn't allowed.

We saw the roaming peacock that always finds Katie.

Here Katie is immitating the noise that the gibbon makes.

As people were running out of steam we made it through the reptile house and got to pet some snakes. Caroline would pet them and then scream. The zookeepers had to remind "The Crusher" a few times not to squeeze. I think the snakes were more frightened of her than vice versa!

We ended the day with a post-dinner snow cone. After discovering the syrup needs to be refrigerated (and I had unknowingly encouraged the girls to try all three flavors on our first day), I am quickly trying to use some up, so that I don't have to keep finding a place for tall snow cone syrup bottles in my fridge!
After dinner Jamie took Katie to the driving range to try out the new driver that he got her. Jamie reported that she did better than some of the grown-ups at the range.
We've got another busy week ahead of us as we prepare to celebrate Caroline's third birthday!