Making Memories

On Tuesday,  we woke up to partly cloudy skies and cooler temperatures,  which led me to make a last minute decision to take the girls to the zoo.  I knew with the school year coming to an end and summer around the corner, this might be the last chance I had to take them without crowds and sweltering heat. I wasn't sure how well our trip would go, but I was willing to give it a whirl.  Let's just say, it was a dance.  In the stroller, out of the stroller, up, down, in, out, holding, watching, corralling...not my most graceful dance, but a dance, nonetheless.  Although pictures were nearly impossible, here are some of our memories:

And we're off...we decided to bring along Mia's monkey and Ava's lion, their favorite stuffed animals. 

Flamingos

Lunch...they did a great job standing together on a chair to eat at the table. 

They love monkeys.  Mia was making monkey sounds here and they both kept waving at him.

Pit stop at the playground = workout for me

After the zoo, we headed to the rainforest where there were more monkeys.  Mia walked from one window to the next with her monkey in hand.

We had so much fun on Tuesday's adventure, that I decided to take the girls to a new park on Wednesday.  The girls enjoyed their first picnic lunch and played until I was exhausted:

I was surprised how well their picnic went. 

There they go...

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Ava

Mia

 

I felt a little bad about having so much fun without Mate and he accomplished something pretty great at work, so we surprised him with a picnic dinner at the park that evening:

Daddy watching the girls explore

We took Mate out for ice cream to celebrate.  He finished editing his first textbook.

Their first baby cones.  Messy, but totally worth it!