Summer Days

We had a blast all summer doing lots of fun summer-y things!  First up, a kiddie pool/slip n' slide extravaganza in the tiny-almost dead front yard at our new house.   

 We had to soak up some sun!

 When my parents came to visit we went to The Butterfly Pavillion.  Mady even held a butterfly, which is HUGE for her since she has issues touching bugs.  She's been working on this all summer and will willingly hold roly poly bugs in her bare hands now!

 Sydney has had no such compunctions and LOVES holding butterflies!

 Sydney finished up ballet and is now thrilled to be in gymnastics with Madelyn.

 We also took Nana & Grampy to the new Asian Tropics exhibit at the zoo.

 It was super fun and the girls were thrilled to be there and see all the fun animals!  The tapirs were not on exhibit because one of them had escaped the previous day into the back!

 We also hit up the aquarium, and the girls got to have a picture taken with the mermaids!  They were so excited and the Mady informed the mermaids that her mom was going to make her a mermaid tail.  She's so so so excited!

 We only go to the aquarium once a year or so and the last time we went Sydney was way too scared to touch the stingrays.  She spent the next year talking about "the next time we go to the aquarium..."  This time she touched them and was so thrilled we could barely drag her out of there!

 I took some photos of the girls outside when our evil spikey rose bush was in full bloom.

I sure love these cuties! 

 The girls took swim lessons this year from a friend of ours.  Sydney went from having zero confidence in the water to being able to do somersaults and basically swim!  She did amazing!

We tried to spend lots of time at the pool and the girls were delighted to go play with Daddy!

 On our way to the ward campout Mady got sick.  We turned around, but Sydney was so disappointed that we went home and set up our tent for her.  She and Daddy got to spend some fun time playing games and such and then she slept in the tent (in the loft) so she could have a camping experience.

 I was the Girl's Camp Director in our ward and we had SO much fun! 

Here's a video of me zip lining at camp.  Almost everyone zipped and it was so much fun!  we also went canoeing, had dress up days, and went hiking.  We had a blast!