Eat Mor Chikin!!

What would you do for free food?

What Do You Do in the Summertime?

We have a lovely wading pool not far from our house - perfect for the crazy mom who takes her four kids swimming to cool off in the afternoons. Even Eli can stand in the "deep" end :)

This summer Leah and Lincoln both got goggles and have done an amazing job teaching themselves to swim with a little coaching from Dad. I've been very impressed!

Art Park

It's been sooo hot this summer that we decided to limit our outings to the Children's Day Art Park. We're only going to brave the heat for our favorites such as Joe McDermott, Staci Gray, and the Biscuit Brothers.

Today we were lucky enough to get there early and we were first in line for the balloon animals... which means we got the cool balloons before the clown realized those were going to take way too long to make for everyone! Aren't they cute though??

Then we stayed until the bitter end so we could all get faces/arms painted.
I really liked the clown who painted Peter's face - he had the minimalist technique working. It was still really cute but didn't take near as long as some of the others.

Water Balloons!

After we got back from Houston, Lincoln had a couple of friends over for a little belated birthday party.

We had hot dogs and lemonade,
tossed around some water balloons,

and played in the sprinkler

and then finished it all off with brownie sundaes
Yum!

Fun in Houston

This past week was Andrew's annual business conference (in San Diego this year). Since he was going to be gone for most of the week, we decided to spend a few days in Houston with the grandparents...

We kept the kids busy in an attempt to wear them out a little - starting with a trip to the zoo on Thursday. We went early so we could leave before it got too hot... even so, it was a sweaty trip. Even the elephants preferred to be in the water!
It was a lot of fun to see the "little" baby elephant too :)


Most of our trip was spent indoors... at the aquarium
and the reptile house.
This guy was a favorite - and he was actually awake and moving around!


The cuban crocodile kept snapping at the kids reflections


And we couldn't miss a trip to the piranha tube...
We headed for home after lunch and vowed to go somewhere cooler the next day.



So we headed out to the Children's Museum.

It's changed a LOT since the last time I was there... there's really too much to do in one day,

so we spent our time in the Cyberchase room and building parachutes and lego cars

before heading upstairs to rescue Grandma and Eli for lunch...
and even then we got sucked into Kidtropolis (the kid-sized town) for a good 30 minutes.

On Saturday, we vacated the house for a cool splash park that Grandma found so she could get things ready for a family dinner. It was great playing with cousins and seeing everybody that evening. The kids were thoroughly worn out from a week of playing so we were ready to hit the road the next day and get back to our own beds.

Thanks for putting up with us Grandma and Papa!
We love you!