Well, summer is well underway. If there were any doubt before, there isn't after spending the last 3 days working outside in this heat and humidity. And I know they say it's not the heat, but the humidity..... But honestly, I think it is the heat. I am not looking forward to the next three or four months. I do not understand why so many people come to the zoo during the summer when they could actually be at home in the air-conditioning!!! We do what we can to help the animals stay cool, and they all seem to fare pretty well. It is us old folks that really suffer!!
Anyway, the girls have been out of school for a couple of weeks, and I have barely seen them. They went to Steve's dad's and step-mom's last Wednesday and will not be home until tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday). While I have really enjoyed being lazy and not having to worry about anyone but me, I have missed them so much! Amelia made her first visit to the emergency room the first day she was there. She was running around the pool and slipped and fell. She landed on her chin and split it a little. I was at work and got a message that she was "ok, but going to the ER to be checked". My poor baby! Steve was with her, and said she did great. She did not have to have stitches, just a little "glue" and a couple of butterfly bandages. Hannah texted me the next morning and said "Amelia's chin doesn't hurt, and all we had to do was glue her back together". Thankfully the rest of the visit has been relatively uneventful. However, they are a bit homesick. Hannah sent me a text message yesterday saying she just really wants to come home. I wanted to jump in the car and go get them, but I had to work all day today and couldn't do it. I think they have had fun, but there is "no place like home", after all. I mean they can't even have a good ol' fight, hitting and crying and tattling, when they are away. They apparantly put on some kind of facade and lead everyone to believe they are these adorable, well behaved children that never do all the things I say they do!! I know they are ready to get back so they can show their true colors, haha!
We are leaving again on Friday. We will drive to Melbourne to meet up with Tracy and her girls, then we will all pile into her van and head for Alabama. We are going for a family reunion and to see Daddy for Father's Day. I am excited to go and see everyone, but am not looking forward to being captive in the van with 5 little girls for 13 hours. Uuuggghhh!! Whenever we stop for a break, we look like a bunch of clowns piling out of one of those little cars at the circus. It is surprising how much you can actually fit in one of those vans.
Hopefully the weather will be nice for our trip, and the girls will get to have lots of outdoor play time. I hope to get lots of pictures, and will then post them to share with everyone.
Here's wishing all of you dads out there a very Happpy Father's Day!!!!

Agapaopolis, the play

Hannah recently had a school play at the Center for the Arts. It was a large production, and they had practiced for most of the second semester. The teachers wanted the kids to all dress appropriately, i.e. in dresses and dress pants (for the boys). This did not sit well with Hannah. She would much prefer to wear her jeans and converse tennis shoes, so there was MUCH complaining about the dress. However, she did wear one, and I thought she looked very pretty and lady-like. So after the play, the very, very long play, I wanted to take some pictures of the girls all dressed up. At least Hannah and Chloe were dressed up, Amelia was in her own idea of "dressed up". But, as usual, they just proved the old saying that "You can dress them up, but you can't take them out". They have sooo much of their Daddy in them!

Hannah "enjoying" being a girly-girl.

Steve, Jr.

I don't know what to say about this one.

This is Amelia. Enough said.

Spring Break 2009 has come and gone. The girls and I went to visit my cousin. She has her own business of baking/decorating cakes for all occasins, so she baked one and let the girls decorate it all by themselves. They really had fun, and it looked pretty good when they were done, all things considered. I have to say, tho, one piece had enough sugar in it to last you a week! There was not really a theme to it, as they each had very different ideas about how it should look. They are actually turning into pros at this, because since then, they each decorated a cake at school for mother's day and they both turned out very nice. Maybe I should put them to work! I have included a few pictures of the cake decorating process for you to see. Looks like fun!

What?!?

Well, it seems that I have failed miserably in my duties as a mother. I just told my children, who are 6 and (almost)9 years old to go wash their feet, and Hannah tells me that she does not know how!!!! Where did I go so wrong?

Saturday at Busch Gardens

This past Saturday the girls and I spent the day at Busch Gardens. A friend had given us passes a while back and we finally had a chance to use them. We really had a nice day. It was pretty crowded, but the weather was overcast so it wasn't too hot. And most of the people there are wanting to ride the "grown-up" rides, so we were not really in the middle of the worst of the crowds. There is a new section that just opened this past year called Jungala, and there is a very large play area for the kids. There are lots of climbing areas and there are animals on exhibit on different levels of the structure (there are stairs for the adults to use, thank goodness). That was the main area the girls wanted to stay in, and since it was just us, I let them do pretty much what they wanted for the day. And as you can see, they wanted to get their faces painted. Amelia chose the unicorn, and Hannah chose a peacock. The good thing about the paint is that is washes right off. The bad thing about it is that it washes right off. They really wanted to keep it on their faces, but they had to have a bath Saturday night so they had to wash it all off. But they looked beautiful in their "masks" while they lasted. Now they are trying to talk me into going to Disney next Saturday. I just don't think I am ready for that so soon after Busch Gardens. Next week is spring break for my kids, so I think we are going to visit some family we have not seen in a while. If I remember the camera, maybe I will have pictures to post from the trip.

Turn up your volume:)

I don't have any pictures of the girls at the zoo today, but I do have a few pictures of the animals to share. There are a couple of Hadiah, the 3 year old orangutan that is having a tantrum in the piture i posted last week. She is such a funny little girl. I am also including one of her and her little sister (same dad, different moms) RanDee. Hadiah loves to spend time with RanDee, and DeeDee is nice enough to let Hadiah play with RanDee as long as she plays nice. If she gets too rough or obnoxious, DeeDee will smack Hadiah and shoo her away. And this happens at least once or twice a day, because Hadiah can only not be obnoxious for short periods of time.

I am also including a picture of one of our newest residents, Sid, the bush baby. Don't let the picture fool you, tho. He is vicious!!! He only weighs a couple of pounds, but he is not afraid to take us on. We have to lock him in his nest box just to go into the exhibit to clean up and feed him. If he were any bigger, he would REALLY be scary.