St. Louis Zoo, 2009 Edition

Hello, poor, neglected blog! Does anyone even read you anymore? :)

Back in July the kids and I, honorary "Aunt" Margaret, Aunt Karen and cousin Kyle, and some of Karen and Kyle's friends spent a morning at the St. Louis Zoo. This has become an annual event for us, and as usual, it was tiring, but a lot of fun!

Ava found a friend right off the bat. Do you think if Princess Ava kissed him, he'd turn into a prince?First stop: the Children's Zoo. Ava really liked these guinea pigs:Then we ventured over to see the hippos. It was a nice, cool morning and they were very active, running circles around the bottom of their tank:Here's cousin Kyle. He's about 1.5 years old, and a bundle of energy!Here's Dane. He's a bundle of energy AND mischief! Not a good combination.Ava, elephant-watching:Elephant, Ava-watching:Dane was determined to stay hydrated that day!He also found lots of places to climb: Next on the agenda was the Penguin & Puffin Coast. We got there just in time for a feeding, which was fun to see:Hungry penguins!It's really cool to watch the penguins swim in the tanks and jump onto the rocks.Puffins!Ava, camel-watching:Camel family:Our last stop of the day was to see the primates. Ava and Dane feel a special camaraderie with the monkeys. :) These are chimpanzees:
Hopefully more posts to come sooner rather than later!

Water Babies

Has it really been almost a month since my last post? The summer is flying by!

The kids both took swim lessons at the New Haven Pool in July. Dane was in the Get Acquainted Class, and Ava was in Level 1. They both had fun swimming, but it was COLD!! That's a really strange thing to say in July, I know, but they even cancelled class one night because it was so cool.

All ready to go with beach towels and flip flops:Ava did GREAT! She loves the water, and did everything her teachers asked her to do. She passed Level 1 with flying colors!Dane, well, he was a different story. It took some convincing to get him in the water at all the first night. Once he worked up the courage to get into the baby pool, he decided the water was a lot of fun. After some getting used to, he would even jump into the pool holding onto my hands. However, he did not like it at all when I tried to help him float or "swim" around in the water. He kept screaming "Baby pool! Baby pool!"

Here are some pics of Dane post-lesson. His were right before Ava's, and I don't have any of him in the water because I was in the water with him.Little Miss Fish waiting in line for her turn on the water slide - it was her favorite part. She even went off the diving board into the deep end a few times later in the week. Can you tell all the kids are shivering? This was even one of the "warm" nights!Splashdown!Brrrrrr, look at those purple lips!

Father's Day Fun

One of the grocery store bakeries in our town hosted a cake-decorating session, where kids could come and decorate a cake to give to their dads for Father's Day. The kids and I went, and Ava decorated a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for her Daddy.

Ava getting ready to decorate the naked cake:

Ava picked the icing colors, and I helped her pipe it on. She put the sprinkles on all by herself. Her philosophy is the more sprinkles, the better!Dane supervised the cake decorating project - right up until he fell over the back of the chair. Fortunately, he's partially made of rubber, and bounced right back!After the sprinkles, Ava added as many plastic picks as possible for the finishing touch. In her eyes, Daddy is a guiter-playing, basketball-shooting, handyman lucky star of a dad!Dane was happy to clean up the extra icing:We delivered the cake to Daddy at his farm on Father's Day. But before the kids presented him with his cake, they helped him water the heifers that live in the pasture next to his house.Moo! The heifers were grateful for the drink:Daddy thought the cake looked great, Ava was very proud of herself, and Dane couldn't wait to dig in (of course). We shared it with the Oelrichs side of the family after dinner that day, and everyone thought it tasted great, too!

On the agenda for this week: swimming lessons for Ava AND Dane, and a trip to the zoo!

Camp Trinity Family Fun Day

Every summer, a local camp owned by a family from our church, Camp Trinity, hosts a Family Fun Day that includes all kinds of outdoor activities. I ran in the 5K cross-country race that morning (I almost won the women's division!), and then later the kids and I ate a yummy BBQ lunch and had some fun. There was a fishing derby, hiking, canoeing and swimming throughout the day.


Camp Trinity also hosted Vacation Bible School for preschoolers through eighth-graders there last week, and Ava had a blast. We are really blessed to have a place like this so close to our home!

Dane made a new friend. This is "Maggie":

Ava spent most of her time in the bounce house, of course:Dane was afraid to go in the bounce house, so I entertained him (and several other kids) by blowing bubbles for them to chase:Ava, bouncing away!

Farm Kids

On Friday morning, I had a few things to do at the farm, though technically I had the day off. My two little sidekicks came along to help, since they also had the day off from the sitter's.

First we jumped on the Gator. Buckle up!

Then we headed back to the calf sheds. Ava and Dane were more interested in petting the friendly little cat that lives there. They named him "Little Jake".

As opposed to BIG Jake, who lives at our house:

They said hi to the baby calves:Ava did a superb job of supervising from her seat on the Gator. Like the purple butterfly mud boots? She puts the "girl" in "farmgirl".Dane mixed up some calf feed . . .. . . and tried to feed some to Little Jake:Clearly, Little Jake wasn't interested.

Then it was time to climb back on the Gator . . .

. . . and go visit the "mommy cows".Unlike the field trip cows, our cows are curious.Very curious.

Moo!