Outside Time

We were lucky enough to finally have one of those beautiful summer weekends, with nothing much to get done, so we spent it all outside! I love it when we can play outside all day, the girls never get bored of it, and take much better naps because of it ;). Friday night we went to Friday Night Live at Jefferson Pointe, which is right around the corner from our house. It's sort of a really pretty huge outdoor shopping mall, and in the center they had a live band playing classic rock (think Beatles, Monkeys, that sort of thing). We brought a blanket and met some friends and relaxed and listened to the music. We took turns taking each girl down to the dancing area in front of the band. Lindsey broke it down, she loves to dance and clap to the music. Espescially when "Believer" was played. Sara just stared in awe at the band, I think it was a little loud for her, but she liked it. It was a beautiful night!

Saturday was Ryan's morning to sleep in. So I woke up with the girls, and while they were eating breakfast I got all of my chores done for the day (laundry, dishes) so we could get outside sooner! I spent like 2 hours blowing up their pool, it was hard work. Then Lindsey helped me fill it while Sara took a nap. Ryan woke up while we were filling the pool and helped get the rest of it together. We needed to do a little running around before playing in the pool, so when Sara woke up we loaded into the van. We got our vegetable plants at Lowe's, dropped Ryan off to get a haircut, and the girls and I went to Meijer because we were out of fruit and veggies. Then we went back to pick Ryan up, and headed home for lunch. We made a quick lunch, changed into bathing suits and ate outside. As soon as Lindsey was done she headed straight for the pool. I had forgotten to tie down the slide that came with the pool before I filled it, so it find of floated, so we just put our slide into the pool, and Lindsey had fun with that!

Ready to come down the slide:

Splashing into the water:
Sara took some coaxing, but finally got in and tried to climb the slide:

I just think she looks cute here:

Lindsey splashing around:

While the girls were swimming Ryan got our garden planted. Lindsey would use her watering can and take water over to water the plants. We had to take a break at naptime, and both girls slept great and we had to wake them up after an almost 3 hour nap! Ryan had marinated grilled chicken all ready for us, we got them changed back into their suits, ate dinner outside again, and they played in the pool most of the rest of the night. It started getting a little chilly around 7:30, so we dried them off and took them on a bike ride in the bike trailer. Then we had to come inside because the Wings were coming on :). Lindsey got to see the first 2 goals before going to bed. Go Wings! It was a really fun day.

Sunday was my day to sleep in, but I'm always up by 9 so that Lindsey and I can head to church. Lindsey really likes her class, but it's at a time when Sara's taking her morning nap so Ryan stays home with Sara. She hadn't been in a while because we've been gone, so she was happy to see everyone. We got home around 11:15 and we all decided to try to head to the zoo. They just opened "African Journey" this weekend and we were afraid it would be busy, but it was an overcast day so we were hoping that would scare people off. We ate lunch early, then headed to the zoo, we got there around 12:30. We walked through African Journey first.
Lindsey in front of the zebras:

Lindsey in front of the wildebeasts:

Sara pointing at an animal:

Then we headed to the Indonesian Rainforest area.

Going into the kid's tree house. We tried to get a picture of Lindsey, but she went too fast:

Lindsey watching the otters:

They were fun and interactive:

We stopped at a splash pad and let Lindsey get wet for a little while, she had worn her bathing suit under her dress. There was also a kid size train to play on, so that's what Sara did. After they played for a while we stopped to feed the ducks:

Then we decided even though we'd only been through about half the zoo we better head home because it was already past naptime. Lindsey and I stopped at the potty before we left and while we were in there Ryan was making Sara laugh and caught a couple cute pictures:

Since Lindsey had walked the entire zoo she was tired and passed out on the way home. It was strange, because if you know my kids you know as a general rule they don't sleep in the car, ha.

It was pretty cute though:

When we got home the girls laid down for a good nap again. Ryan grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner. They were yummy! The girls got their suits on again and headed back into the pool for a little while. It didn't last too long though, Lindsey was kind of cold. We really wanted to get our van cleaned out before our trip this week. I headed to the carwash and got it all vacuumed out. Then I came back and Lindsey and Ryan and Sara washed the outside while I worked on the inside. Everyone had fun. By then it was bedtime, so we headed inside. Lindsey watched an episode of Curious George, and then they were off to bed. We hope we can have a lot of weekends like that this summer! We'll be traveling for the next 3 weekends, so maybe in another month :).