Last Hurrah

We took the girls to Memphis Kiddie Park on Sunday, as a final kiss goodbye to summer. It was a riot of fun and laughter and running and leaping. Nat has accurately described this place as "the most magical parking lot ever".  An apt moniker.  It's a fenced in asphalt lot over by the airport and if you stripped away the shimmer of children's joy, it would be a creepy set for a Scooby Doo episode.  Chock full of pint-sized carnival rides and sullen teenage operators, smelling of oil from the rides and corn dogs, it's been here since the 50's. (Papa went as a boy!)

The girls were absolutely overcome with pleasure.  No fear, no hesitation. They ran from ride to ride, eagerly gathering their tickets from Papa's pocket and giving them to the ticket takers.  They rode just about everything that moved, skipping out only when we ran out of tickets.  They rode the roller coaster twice. I can't even describe all their excitement, so I'll just show you the pictures. 

Finger Lakes Adventures, in photo



Luke found a fuzzy caterpillar.  They named him Nick.



 Our trip to Seneca Lake in New York was tremendous.  Good family time, obscene amounts of food, shopping, and playtime.  The girls reveled in the attenton and the excitement and were, overall, very coperative and well-behaved. They even slept respectably well which, for me, makes it among the best vacations ever.

 


There were multiple dance parties. Here is Lillian the Drum Major.



This very good looking group of people went out to dinner





 
Sometimes we prefer to travel incognito. You know.  The paparazzi.

Naomi, slightly dubious as to whether we will let her

tumble over the wall into the pretty water fountain.

Since Nick was fuzzy, Lillian fell in love.  This was moments before she kissed him.  Thankfully, Nick was not poisonous.







Dive! Dive!

Argh.  Something has gone all wary with the order and layout of this post and I am not smart enough to fix it or motivated enough to start over and do it right.  Nargh. 

Vacation=Awesome.

Posting about Vacation=Not as awesome.

Visit With An Actual Baby

As much as I might still like to call the girls "the babies", it really isn't true anymore.  They are really not at all babies.  Thankfully, other people keep having squishy bundles of wonderfulness that I can hold and gurgle at.  Namely, Kate. 

She brought Anderson, who is delightfully squishy and edible, up to visit at my mom's before we left for New York. We had a great visit with all the littles and the moms and grandmas (Wait! That makes Kate and I 'the moms', doesn't it?? Holy crap.  When my mom was our age, Kate and I were headed to prom.  Prom. Holy crap.)

Naomi and Lillian were absolutely captivated by this little man.  And Kate's bulldog, Olive.  It was probably a tie. 

Naomi performed Itsy Bitsy Spider for him.



They shared books and Nana's lap.  Lillian offered Anderson just about every object she could think of but wasn't totally convinced that she wanted him to take it.  It was more like, "See?  I have this thing.  When you get older, you can have things, too.  But right now, I have this thing.  And it's awesome." 

It was a great afternoon and a preview of more fun to come. I picture these three tromping around together when we go camping, getting dirty and giggling and making mild but interesting trouble. I look forward to them seeing another example of a great lifetime friendship.

As the girls went to bed that night, they both (especially Naomi) talked about baby Anderson and Olive the dog like they were the best things since sliced bread.  Pretty much.

Meanwhile, I 'm going to go and dig out prom pictures and pretend that it wasn't that long ago. It wasn't, right?

Dancing Queens

Lillian and Naomi are learning the powers of dance.  I have to upload and sort all the pictures and video from our vacation in the Finger Lakes, but in the meantime, here they are at Wade Oval Wednesday.  Apparently they were the trendsetters and enticed all the other children out to dance.  That lovely woman in the red top that Lillian is dancing with?  Total stranger.