Happy Fourth!
The day started off with a sleep in (7am) – of all the days! We had to gather for the bike parade at 7:45am.To get in the spirit of the festivities we had mini-bagels with cream cheese for breakfast. Then we decked out our house, our scooters and ourselves in red white and blue and headed down for the bike parade.
And we were off and parading…
There were some kids there who had really put some effort in. We got lots of great ideas for next year 🙂
Luckily we live so close, because after the parade we were a little tired…
…and had to head home for some down time.
The we were recharged and ready to go. So we were off back down to the park.
There were millions of things going on!
We chose to take part in just some. Like the pony rides…
The painting maze…
The group percussion…(sorry no photos – we were too busy banging things!)
We made time to enjoy the massive flag in the park…
The ice-cream eating competition…
As Lachie was too small he had a special competition for one 🙂
We then had a quick lunch in the park before heading home for a run under the sprinkler (it was 33 degrees Celcius today) and a nap.
Again we were charged and ready to go go go!
On the way down we got distracted by the park…
and the baby duckies…
Before chilling out in the park. We played listened to music, had dinner provided by the local scouts (thank you very much!) before heading home forr the third time.
We can’t wait for next year as there were too many activities to do them all. This year we missed the circus, the fireworks, the dunking machine, the hot dog eating contest, the pet competition – to name a few. That gives us one year to work on our stamina.
We had an awesome time! Thank you Maplewood 🙂
Happy Fourth!
Ice-Cream!
It’s pretty hot here at the moment and so what better way is there to beat the heat than eat ice-cream?
So tonight after dinner we walked down to the local ice-cream parlour…yummo!
Lachlan @ 2.4y
What a bundle of energy! He go go goes until he falls down asleep.
Always ready to laugh and play – particularly at top speed.
Favourite things: trains & dinosaurs.
Favourite colour: pink? or is that just what he thinks Elimena wants to hear?
Favourite things to do: tackle and run and wrestle and jump! He is always covered in bumps, scratches, bruises and bandaids 😦
Favourite foods: cheese, hotdogs and pizza. He is settling in to America nicely!
He is kind hearted but very energetic. He is aware of his friends and family and always the first to jump in to hold your hand if you look worried.
He still loves a snuggle and storytime. He still has a two hour nap in the middle of the day.
He gave up his bottles of milk this month without much of a fuss. Next it is the nah-nah!
Garden Play-Time
We had another quiet day hanging out in Maplewood today. We’re saving up our energy stores for July 4th!
One of the things we love to do is play on our garden…
Check out where the ball is in this shot…
Races are always a favourite in our garden, as is hide-and-seek 🙂
We’ll have to get some piccies of the squirrels 🙂
Local Pool
Day-care is closed today and so we have a four day quality family weekend planned together 🙂
Today, in preparation for our swimming lessons starting next weekend, we thought we’d check out the local pool…
We stopped for a play at a local park on the way home. This one is at the other end of our street to the park that we usually go to. We are so lucky to have a cool park at eache end 🙂
A Quiet Weekend at Home
We had a quiet weekend at home this weekend 🙂
On Saturday afternoon, we wandered down to the Maplewood Pride concert in the park at the end of the street. We took a picnic dinner, played with the local kids, danced to the band and had an ice-cream for dessert. Mum was asked if she was there to show her pride. (A little unusual considering that she was there with a husband and two kids.) To which she responded: “We celebrated Memorial Day and we aren’t American. We’ll happily celebrate Pride day too.”
Eli thinks that there is a concert in park every weekend. Which is kind-of true of late 🙂 A picnic dinner in the park, listening to a band and playing with the other kids has become a bit of a weekend evening routine for us 🙂 Not quite sure how long our good fortune will continue for though…Rumour has the Fouth of July one next weekend is going to be a big one though!
So it was another fun weekend hanging out in Maplewood.
In case anyone reading likes pictures, here are some from play time.
After a while the dinosaurs got hungry and one tried to eat Lachie’s finger.
Not too keen on that idea he gave them some milk and leaves.
Hapy weekend!
New Houses Come With Surprises
One of the *fun* things with buying a new house is that you never quite know what you are getting…
Take our garden for instance, when we first saw it, it was covered in three feet of snow.
The snow melted and now *surprises* are popping up out of the gound everywhere.
Take the row of plants below. At first there was nothing. Then green bushes sprouted. Then these long tall stems sprouted. Then little pods grew on the stems. Now we are trying to guess (and hope!) what colour the flowers will be…
Happy American Father’s Day
The Sunday was non-stop action too.
We headed back to Reading Terminal Market for breakfast. We were disappointed to find that the Amish weren’t there (as their pastries were excellent!) and so ate in a diner instead.
Then we headed to the museum of Natural History. It was awesome!
We knew it was going to be good when we saw this out the front…
Eli-Bear found some fellow bears
Sometimes it was hard to tell the live animals….
From the not-so live ones…
Then we found the dinosaur hall…
and there was a bit of kidding around going on…
…followed by some serious digging…
But there was definitely time to make dad some Father’s day cards…
Given dad’s love of cheese-steaks, we hunted down one of the “best” cheese-steaks in Philly before heading home. Happy Father’s Day dad 🙂
Weekend in Philly
What an action packed weekend!
The day started with a walk around Philly…
Followed by breakfast a Reading Terminal Market. The Amish pastries we to die for!
Then we got the subway…
…to Camden New Jersey. Don’t worry there weren’t any fires where we were 🙂
We went to the aquarium to see Lynn, who was working. We were lucky enough to see both behind the scenes and her show. See Eli in the picture below giver her a High-5 through the window). It was excellent!
At the aquarium, we saw all kinds of fish (including Penguins, Seals and Caymans – see below) and got to touch star fish, baby sharks and shark rays.
A ferry ride back to Philadelphia Pennsylvania past the battleship…
It’s been a while since we tried an American Chain and so we went to DQ (Dairy Queen).
There we saw Miss Pennsylvania Galaxy in a beautiful sash and tiara, but we were too slow with our camera to get a picture 😦
It was then home for nap time before a run in the park and dinner with Lynn.
AND that was just the Saturday!
Tycoon Dog
We had lots of energy and a free afternoon and so we headed down to the park at the end of the street for a free concert by Tycoon Dog.
It rocked! Lachie had a ball running around and Eli chilled on the blanket and listened to the tunes.
On the way home we said hello to the real duckies before walking up the hill. Not a bad way to spend a lazy afternoon 🙂
Wallamble 