A Zoo Day with the Girls

It was such a beautiful day today so I decided to take the girls to the zoo. It was really a nice day. We left the house and picked up lunch on the way. When we got there is was early afternoon and several of the animals were being fed as we walked thru the zoo. It seems like we saw more zookeepers chatting and feeding animals today than any other time that we visited the zoo. We saw the gorillas, the panda, the giraffes, the polar bears and the goats eating. A lot of the animals were out and moving about, but just about all of the cats were napping. The zoo had a "Birds and Bees" exhibit for the summer. Rachel thought that it was really cool because she got to hold a stick that had some birdseed on it and the birds all came to her stick to eat. We stayed until Abigail was ready for a nap. The girls and I had a great day!

Open House at Rachel's School

Tonight, we went to an open house at Rachel's school. She got to meet her teacher and we took in all of her school supplies. She was so excited. Now, she really can't wait for school to start. I am so glad that she is more excited than she is nervous. She will start on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Here are some pictures of her in her class.

My Redbox Addiction

Jeremy says that I have an addiction to Redbox. I started renting $1 movies from Redbox last month. You can reserve their movies online and pick them up later. Then you can return them to any Redbox location when you are done. I was renting one movie each weekend for several weeks. Then, I discovered that there are promotion codes for free rentals that can be found on the internet if you search a bit. For three days straight, I brought home a different movie for us to watch. And, the last five movies that I have rented from Redbox were totally free! How can you beat that?!

Bad doggies!

I had to make a trip to the Southaven Animal Shelter today to "bail out" our two Westies from lockup. Rachel was letting them out and she accidentally left the back door cracked open as she was trying to put Snowy on his cable outside. Ella saw the open door as her opportunity to run so she did and then Snowy took off, too. Abigail was sleeping so I couldn't go chase them at the time it happened. They weren't out for very long at all when someone in our neighborhood had them picked up by animal control.
When we were at the animal shelter (just before they closed), they had just sprayed down the concrete floor where the kennels were. They asked me to help put my dogs on leashes (while holding Abigail). I followed the worker back and then slipped and fell on the wet floor. Luckily, the baby didn't get hurt. I hurt my knee when I fell forward and twisted my back, too. It was not a good afternoon. I'm sure that I will be sore tomorrow.

Water Fun at Home

It was a hot day so Jeremy decided to get the girls' pool out again since we had put it up before our vacation at the end of July. He thought that it would be fun for them to put the sprinkler in the pool and let it fill the pool up. Here is a video clip of the girls dancing to the rhythm of the sprinkler. (Abigail started it and then Rachel joined in.)


Here is a clip of Abigail playing with the water hose.


Here are some pics from the afternoon.

Playing at Snowden Grove Park

We went to a play date this morning that was held by the mom's group that I belong to. This event was held to "honor" all of the big kids that will be starting kindergarten this year. The girls had a good time playing until they both got hungry so we had to leave a bit early to get lunch.

Some Videos from Dollywood

Here is a video of Jeremy riding the Dizzy Disk. You can also see Rachel watching him in the bottom of the video.


Here is a video of Jeremy and Rachel riding in a bumper car.


Here are some clips of the girls playing on the splash pad.

Our Trip to Pigeon Forge

Jeremy had to go on a business trip to East Tennessee so we thought that we could make a family mini vacation out of it. We drove to Kingsport on Wednesday and stayed there for the night. On the way, we stopped at Opry Mills in Nashville and had a late lunch at the Aquarium restaurant. It was new to the mall since our last trip there two years ago. It was really neat. Before we got back on the road, Rachel wanted to do bungee jumping in the mall. She thought that it was really fun, but that it was a little scary, too.

Jeremy had a meeting until our checkout time on Thursday so I got the girls ready and packed up by the time that he was done. We hit the road and headed to Pigeon Forge. We arrived in town and had a late lunch at Cracker Barrel. (Well, some of us had breakfast for our lunch...LOL.) After lunch, we headed to the hotel to check in and to get ready to head to Dollywood. We had two day tickets for Friday and Saturday so we could get in free after 3:00pm on Thursday, too. Dollywood was having Kids Fest so it was a fun time for Rachel. She absolutely LOVES Dollywood! We stayed at Dollywood until closing time on Thursday. After that, we went back to the hotel room and Jeremy picked us up some dinner from McAlister's. The girls were so tired that we didn't want to take them out to dinner.

Here's a video of Jeremy and Rachel riding the Shooting Star. They are on the far right.


On Friday, we headed back to Dollywood. We each went on a few rides with Rachel when we first got there and then we took her to a show. Since it was Kids Fest, the Kratt brothers (from PBS Kids) were there. We saw their show and Rachel really liked it. Abigail did, too. If you aren't familiar with their tv show, they have a pet lemur named Zaboomafoo. They had a real lemur in the show that looked like Zaboomafoo. After the show, we had lunch and then let Rachel pick whatever rides (except water rides) that she wanted to go on. Later in the afternoon, we let the girls play in the water at the splash pad/water gun area. After that, Rachel got to ride water rides, too. We all got soaked. Abigail especially loved the splash pad and getting wet. We stayed at Dollywood almost the entire day and left about an hour before closing. We went back to the hotel to change clothes before heading to the Pizza Hut that was in the parking lot of our hotel. At bedtime, we realized that Rachel's favorite bear, Beary, was missing. She settled down after getting upset about it and finally went to sleep.

On Saturday, we were all getting tired. We barely made it to the breakfast service at our hotel in time to eat. Before we loaded up the girls, we searched the truck and stroller for Beary. We couldn't find him anywhere. Still racking my brain as to where that bear could be, we headed back to Dollywood. When we got there, we inquired about a lost and found area thinking that there was a slim chance that someone may have found Beary there and turned him in. We would be passing by that area on our way out of the park so we didn't check it when we first got there. Instead, we went to see another show that was about to begin, Sha-Kon-O-Hey! It was about the Smokies. It was a good show and kept the girls' attention, too. During the show, I happened to think about a kids area that provided arts and crafts that we had been at the day before. I remembered that Rachel had laid Beary down at a table when she colored her tiger mask. After the show, we headed back there to check on Beary and sure enough, he was on their counter, wearing sunglasses and a set of Dollywood "dogtags". Rachel was sooo excited that we found him and she thought that it was really cool that he had spent the night in Dollywood. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing whatever Rachel wanted to do. And again, we saved the water fun for the late afternoon. Only on this day, Abigail was napping when Rachel played on the splash pad so she didn't get to take part in that. We ended up staying close to closing time again and headed back to the hotel. We decided to have dinner at Texas Roadhouse which was also within walking distance of our hotel.

Here is a video clip of Abigail dancing to the 50's music that was playing outside the "garage" where Jeremy and Rachel drove some cars.

On Sunday, we packed up and headed to the Gymboree Outlet before getting on the road to head home. On the way home, we stopped in Knoxville to eat lunch at Olive Garden, Rachel's favorite restaurant. We got back on the road and headed to Nashville where we stopped at Opry Mills again so that the girls could stretch their legs a bit and we could get a quick snack. We weren't there long because we were all so tired. We made it back home just before the girls' bedtime. Vacations are fun, but we were glad to be home!

I'll post some more video clips from vacation in a new post. I am having trouble loading more on this post. :)

Abigail Playing in the Rain

I had gone out to get the dogs since it was beginning to rain and Abigail followed me out. She loved catching the rain in her mouth and just getting wet. Here are some video clips of her playing in the rain.

Rachel and Kayla

Yesterday, we went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Our little neighbor turned three. Anyway, our next door neighbor's daughter, Kayla, was there, too. She is Rachel's best neighborhood friend and she is moving away. (Her parents are divorcing and she is going to live with her mother.) This was their last fun time together before she leaves next week. Rachel is so sad that she is moving, but will be excited to see Kayla when she comes to visit her Dad. Here is a pic of the girls together.

And, here's a video of Rachel and Kayla "performing" in front of the blue screen at CEC.