Day Trip to the Aquarium

Since we live just about an hour and a half from New Orleans, we decided that it would be fun to take a mid-week day trip down to see the aquarium.  And it make it even more fun, we went with our friends the Sprafkas.  Here are some pictures from the day.  They are pretty grainy as they are from my cell and the aquarium is so dark.

 Audrey and Mark were wearing their aquarium gear - though Audrey's may have been a coincidence because she almost always wears her whale shirt.

 Audrey trying to locate the fish on the sign with the ones in the tank

 Holy Cow those are some GINORMOUS cat fish!!

 Brooke with the sharks

 The gang in the jaws....probably not real though!

 Audrey with the seahorses

 They were feeding the birds - the sticks basically looked like they were dipped in peanut butter and bird seeds.  Not shown here is me who actually let a bird sit on my hand.  Which is huge.

 Trying to get VERY close to see the sea otters

Neighborhood Camp

One of my friends and neighbors Aimee is super creative and super fun. She had the idea to have a little neighborhood camp.  So three of us got together and each did a day for all 6 kids.  The upside was that when the other two were doing camp, I got days off.  Which during summer can be HUGE.

Aimee went first and did an Italian theme day.

 Brooke as the artist

 The girls making their individual pizzas

The whole group - the girls were anti-mustaches

I was day number two.  My theme was outer space.  We made a solar system, some jet packs, used the sun through a magnifying glass to pop balloons, ate some space ice cream, and did some mentos/diet coke explosions (which really is a huge stretch to call that related to outer space but we called them rockets.)

Here is the solar system and jet packs that the girls made.  It is hanging over their dresser now.

Here is a shot of the "rocket" going off

Here is the whole group - proudly showing off their diet coke bottles

The last day of camp was at Mel's house.  She did a day full of science experiments.  I don't have pictures of the activities there, but I do have a picture of Brooke wearing her tie-dyed shirt from that day.

Destin - photo ops

Every year we do a photo shoot for all of the cousins.  This year we did a little stripe theme, which I love.  Poor little Michael was not overly excited about being in the pictures - totally typical of an 18 month old which I think makes the pictures even cuter.

 The three girl cousins

 All of the cousins - right before Michael made a break for it!

 Year 2 of twins holding twins

 Our little family of four

 And this picture exemplifies the whole photo taking experience

Mitchell is such a good sport!!

Our family of four out at the beach

Why yes, we were just walking along the beach and all spontaneously looked back at something very interesting.

 Those girls are just so cute!

 The three Hadden ladies

Destin - hanging on the beach

We went to Destin in early June for our big family vacation for my side of the family.  We had a great trip - each year it is more fun as the kids all get bigger and have more fun playing with each other and in the ocean.  This year it totally became apparent that the girls are truly BEACH GIRLS!!  They love the water - diving into the waves, body surfing, and boogie boarding.

 Ready to ride the waves!

 Pure joy!

 Working hard to connect the sandcastle all the way to the water

 Audrey and her sweet cousin Cooper

 The girls with the Grands

 Me and Audrey as TWINS

 Brooke rocking out her poses on the beach

 How cute and sweet does Audrey look?

 They are ready for America's Next Top Model - Preschool edition

Chillin in the sand with their cousins

Chillin at Fish Out of Water with my cousins

Me with Brooke.  I just love this picture for some reason.

I'm Baaack!

I have no legitimate excuse (though I did have to go buy a new adapter to get the pictures off of my camera as the usb cord seems to have left our house forever) for my long absence.  But as I promised my friend Stacy that I would have some type of update by the end of the week, I thought I had better get on it.  The summer has FLOWN by and hopefully I will be able to remember the highlights.

So the last post was from Memorial Day when the girls had their dance recital.  Also over Memorial Day , D and I went to New Orleans for the wedding of a good friend from college.  While we were there, my mom and Gary watched the girls here at home.

Starting the Monday of Memorial Day, the girls were in swim lessons for two weeks at a place in Baton Rouge called Crawfish Aquatics (super cute name, right?). And that second week was also VBS at our church.  I was one of the "guides" for the girls' class.  Let's just say that I have a new appreciation for preschool teachers!!

Their favorite part of the lessons was the giant slide that you could buy tokens for (they hook you by giving you a few free!)

The entire class consisted of them and their friend Madison.  Here they all are with their teacher Lauren.

The weekend after Memorial Day before it got too hot, we went hiking with some friends up in Tunica Falls, which is in a state park in MS.  It was super fun.  The girls LOVED the creek hiking.

 Hanging out on some rocks with the Musselwhite boys.

 D taking all the kids creek hiking

 I am pretty sure that they are thinking "oh, yeah, we rock!"

 With their friend Anya behind the waterfall

Random cute pictures:

So this brings me up to our beach trip to Destin!  Since I have not gone through all of those yet - I'll save those for the next post.