June 2014

These girlies love swinging at the park.  We go to the park and Lucy literally makes me push her in the swing for at least an hour.  Claire was pretty content as well.

 When Grandma Nae visits, she leaves treats in Lucy's shoes.  This time, she put them in Lucy's rain boots thinking it would be a while before she found it, but randomly Lucy put them on the next day.  This was her happy/surprised face. :)

 The Madsen's have a fancy dancy blow-up slide/pool thing and invited us over one afternoon when they set it up.  Lucy loved it when the water was not spraying out from the top of the slide.

 Our neighbor invited us to go to Oh-Yo frozen yogurt place to pass the time on a long afternoon when both of our husbands were gone.  Lucy and Mason usually have a good time together.  Lucy was too busy eating a few sour gummy worms to smile normally for the picture.

Ryan said he was tired and so Lucy ran and grabbed pillows and blankets for them to snuggle up with. So thoughtful of her!

 Claire up and started moving and climbing all over everything.  Here she is making her move from the couch to the end table.

 Lucy loves to pack everything and pretend she's going somewhere.  After a while though, this little game turned into carrying around every toy we have just to keep it away from Claire.  She is not a very good sharer right now!  We're working on it...

 Literally every time we go to the zoo, she runs over to this big Gorilla statue and says "take picture!"

 We went to the zoo with our new friends and Lucy and Hudson loved climbing on the fake dinosaur.

Playing with her princesses... she was so proud of fitting them all on this car.

 Claire was a disaster one day after dinner, so we took her straight to the sink to wash off.  She loved it and Lucy loved helping.

 Lucy loves when we use the trunk of that blue elephant stuffed animal to rub her back and belly, so she grabbed the yellow stuffed animal for us to rub Claire with while we did her as well. 

Aunt Wanda visit

My Aunt came to visit again in June and we did the usual- shopping, pool, out to eat, etc.  She spoiled us as usual and it was so fun to have her visit!  

I love this picture... everyone is smiling and looking at the camera!  And it was such a nice day outside. I love the clouds and blue sky in the background.

There's no question that this girl loves to shop!

 She thought it was the funniest thing to push Aunt Wanda on the bum!

Dayton visit

My Aunt came to visit me in Columbus and we went down to Dayton to visit my sister Lisa and her kids in their new home just shortly after they moved here.  We had a good day just hanging out around their house, letting the kids play, and ordering in some pizza.  It was a lot of fun!  I'm so glad Lisa and her girls live close by now for many reasons, but especially so Lucy and Claire can get to know their cousins a little better!

I love this picture of these girlies!

Father's Day

Ryan is the best dad ever to our little girlies.  I am glad they have such a great example to follow.  Ryan got a big breakfast before church, a long nap afterwards, steak from Costco, and a bunch of desserts at a little dessert get-together with friends.  Here is Ryan with the little girlies that love and admire him and made him a dad!  I love this picture of them.

Martin Visit part 3

We got back from Nashville on Wednesday, and spent Thursday at the Columbus Zoo.  It was good weather and we all got in for free with our pass, so it was fun.  I rode a camel with Lucy, and we waited in line forever to feed the giraffes only to have it be the one and only time they could not get the giraffes to eat!  Lame.  We still had fun though.

Friday was their last full day in Columbus, so we walked the Scioto Mile as we always do.  After that, we went to a new frozen custard place downtown that Janae found online called Whit's and it was amazing.  We will definitely be back!!

 It wouldn't be a trip to the Scioto Mile without stopping to swing on just about every big swing.

 Lucy doesn't let the "don't touch the fountains" signs stop her from having fun.  Oh well.

We took a little walk around the neighborhood before the Martin's left on Saturday morning.  Lucy didn't want to be done, so Ryan just pretended to hang her up without getting her out... which she thought was hilarious and obviously didn't help her want to get out but it was still cute.

And that's the end of the Martin 2014 visit!  Thanks for a great time, Mark and Janae!

Martin Visit part 2 (Nashville)

While Ryan's parents were here, Ryan had a business trip to Nashville that he couldn't change, so we decided to tag along!  The hotel was awesome and had two rooms in our suite, which made it really easy to take the girls and guests.  We drove down Sunday after church.

On Monday, we went and toured the Grand Ole Opry house while Ryan was at work.  This place was really cool- it made me want to put on some cowgirl boots and transform into a country star! :)  After Ryan got off work, we went downtown to the Wild Horse Saloon for dinner, which was a ton of fun!  They led us right up to the front and center table, so we were close to the live entertainment, the dancing, everything.  I loved it, however, Lucy sat with her hands over her ears the whole time because it was SO loud in there.  We finally bought her some ear plugs which she ended up liking and was finally able to feed herself her own dinner. Ha!  She is very sensitive to loud noises.  Janae and I even got up and did the line dance instructions and danced for a little bit.  Some nice older man saw Lucy dancing and asked if she would like to dance.  She got a little shy so I picked her up and we danced with him for a song.  We were the only ones out on the floor, so I felt a little awkward, but it was still fun.  The guy used to be a dance instructor for 30 years and was visiting from Texas, so he knew how to lead us around and not look too stupid! ;)

On Tuesday, we went downtown and checked out the Ryman Auditorium, tried on a whole bunch of awesome cowboy boots in a boot store (and waited out a long rainstorm in there, too), bought some good treats at a fun chocolate/candy shop, drove by the Parthenon replica, and just enjoyed the atmosphere of downtown Nashville.  We got caught in yet another huge rainstorm walking back to the car, but we survived.

Wednesday morning we just drove back home.  One other thing that was pretty fun while visiting Nashville was that Ryan got upgraded to the top floor, which is a private floor that has free snacks, treats, and drinks from vending machines 24/7.  So you better believe that every time we passed them we loaded up with TONS of free treats.  I can't even count how many candy bars, chips, and drinks we took (and ate... yikes... bad for our waitlines)!  But Lucy thought it was the coolest thing ever that we had a little mini refrigerator in our room.  She would run straight to it every time and pull out an orange juice, take a sip, put it back in, repeat 1,000 times.  It was for sure her favorite part of the trip (easy to please!). Ha.  It was cute to see her have so much fun with such simple new things.

Don't worry- this picture was taken while we were sitting still in a traffic jam.

This is where the stars check-om at the Grand Ole Opry when they are there to perform.

One of the many, fancy dressing rooms.

These are the mailboxes of everyone who has been indicted into the Opry.  They actually pick up their mail here (well, fan mail).  So obviously, Mark is looking for his fan mail. ;)

 Lucy was dancing away to the music they had playing outside. :)

At the Wild Horse Saloon.

Here was our table, front and center.  And Lucy covering her ears!

Something about Nashville makes every girl instantly feel like they need a pair of boots.  Am I right?!

 View of our hotel from the top floor, where we stayed.

 Free vending machines are right up our ally!  We even had the code memorized.