Zoo Pack Meeting

We visited the zoo a couple weeks ago, where a pack of wild animals Cub Scouts were on the loose. Actually, we brought them with us, and it was really fun. Mike, as cub master, helped them earn the Hogle Zoo trails patch by identifying animals and picking up litter. Elise and Lydia had fun, too. We need to get back to the zoo more often!

Lydia really liked this gorilla, or as she called it: "monkey - hoo hoo hah!"
Elise and Mike, as tall as the giraffe!

Elise and her little friend Nathan, aren't they cute?

Great Grandparents

Elise and Lydia are so lucky and blessed to have some living great-grandparents. Quite a few, actually.

We see my mom's dad almost once a week, at Sunday dinner. He also invites us to gymnastics meets which Elise just LOVES. She sometimes says she wants to be a "gymnastics girl" (recently corrected to "gymnast") when she grows up. One day I asked her what she thought she would need to do to be a gymnast, and she has it all figured out. All she needs is to "wear a leotard with no tights" :).

My dad's parents are fun to visit too, and Elise often suggests we call them when we're bored and want to get out of the house. They are so great, they always let us drop in on very short notice. They get out the special grandkid-sized chairs, feed the girls Kissables candies, and make them feel special. One recent time we visited, Elise pulled a plastic BB out of her pocket, a "treasure" she had collected while walking home from school. She knew it was called a BB, but she had never seen what they are used for. Grandpa was happy to show her his spring powered BB gun and even set up a little target in the house for her to try!

Mike's grandma, his mom's mom, lives a little further away, but we still see her a few times a year. Recently we got to visit because she needed a new hard drive in her computer. I think Elise and Lydia ate every cracker in her cupboard, and she was happy to let them.

In an effort to keep things chronological...

I'm reserving this space for pictures and stuff about our trip to Hawaii. I kept putting it off because I knew it would take a while, so I just decided to make a space for it and move on!