Friday, August 29, 2014

Soaking up every bit of summer

We got home from vacation with hours to spare until Meredith's birthday party and then...there it was.  The last week of summer.  The last week of me being a mom to a preschooler.  I was definitely sad and wanting to make sure we made the most of it all!  After working the first two days of the week, we used Wednesday for a special errand....Piper had been away at "boot camp" for an entire month!  We had to board her for our anniversary trip and the Colorado trip, so we decided to use that time away to the fullest and get her a little training.  We all missed her a ton and were so happy to have her home!

After spending a month in an outdoor (but climate controlled) kennel, she was so happy to see her bed and her family!

Then on Thursday, we planned a special day with Meredith's friend, Brooklyn.  We realized late last year that Brooklyn, who was a first grader with Meredith, was living just down the street from us!  We played together one other evening this summer and all three girls had a blast.  So, we invited Brooklyn along with us to the zoo.  Even though it is August in Texas, the weather was better than we could have expected and we were able to enjoy the zoo for almost the whole day!

The girls introduced Brooklyn to the Meerkat posed picture that we send to Daddy every zoo trip.

Silly sisters.

I sent this picture to Neal and asked him what I was thinking.  The two things I most associate with our fun preschool years are the zoo and the carousel - my girls have always loved both and we have spent many days visiting the zoo and probably just as many heading up to ride the carousel at the mall.  So this made for an especially emotional mama, knowing this was one of my last days with Beans before Kinder and just one of the last fun days of summer in general!

The girls begged to go to the animal show - we hadn't been in probably 2 years.  Meredith was excited to get picked to go on stage where she got to touch a snake!

The girls posed with the alligator after the show.

Waiting on the train - another favorite at the zoo!

And no zoo trip is ever complete without a ride on the bronze elephant!

On Friday, we loaded up our stuff, just the three of us and headed to Hawaiian Falls - we hadn't been to a watermark all summer, so I knew this was the perfect last day activity!  Again, the heat wasn't as bad as is typical in August, so we had a really great time - we got to ride lots of rides and just have a fun time with just us three! I sure love these girls and I love summer!


As we wrapped up the weekend, we headed out for our yearly back-to-school tradition of pedicures!  Jillian got purple toes and fingers with pink chevron stripes (of course!) and Meredith chose green with white polka-dots (to match her polka-dot dress she picked out for the first day of school)

Jillian loved "Mr. Tickles" as she called the foot scraper! 

After we got home, we had pizza for dinner while having movie night together as a family.  Before bed during story time, Meredith grabbed Mrs. Bindgergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten and read it to Jillian and used the story to tell her all about the things she would get to do the next day!  What a sweet sister!


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